He often said to them that there was
not one good person among them; but I supposed he excepted
himself. He seemed to me so very good that I was very much afraid
of him. I was a little afraid of my father, but then he sometimes
played with us children: and besides, my father was only a man.
I thought the minister belonged to some different order of
beings. Up there in the pulpit he seemed to me so far off--oh! a
great deal farther off than God did. His distance made my
reverence for him take the form of idolatry. The pulpit was his
pedestal. If any one had told me that the minister ever did or
thought anything that was wrong, I should have felt as if the
foundations of the earth under me were shaken. I wondered if he
ever did laugh. Perhaps it was wicked for a minister even to
smile.
One day, when I was very little, I met the minister in the
street; and he, probably recognizing me as the child of one of
his parishioners, actually bowed to me! His bows were always
ministerially profound, and I was so overwhelmed with surprise
and awe that I forgot to make the proper response of a "curtsey,"
but ran home as fast as I could go to proclaim the wonder.
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