PRELUDE TO THE 175TH ANNIVERSARY SERVICE
“The Heresy of Parson Clapp: The Promise of Our Own Longings”
A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church in New Orleans
Sunday, February 24, 2008
…One day I was invited to take tea in a family of our congregation, and pass the evening with a small number of friends. Being called to attend a wedding, I did not reach the house till near 10 o’clock. Instead of a few persons convened for an hour’s conver-sation, there was a large, gay company, whose movements had resolved into a dance, and were directed by a band of musicians. Now, if I had followed the advice of my venerable instructors at Andover, I should have instantly retired, that I might not, even in appear-ance, have sanctioned for a moment a species of recreation so inconsistent with the dignity and seriousness of a Christian life.
But as I was politely conducted to a chair in the midst of a circle of ladies, who preferred looking on to an active participation in the festivity going forward, I determined to make myself at home, and commit what I had had been taught to regard as a heinous, unjustifiable indulgence, by witnessing an entertainment generally pronounced among Presbyterian clergymen as sinful and injurious. There was, however, in my heart no sense of violated duty, no feeling of guilt.
I spent an hour or more in this cheerful circle, where all things to the eye and ear were refined, orderly and decorous. Before me stood the young and happy, upon whose fates and fortunes the somber shadows of adversity had not yet gathered; their minds were bright and buoyant, their steps elastic, their ears opened to the melodies of sound, their eyes radiant with pleasure. As I was meditating upon those comely brows, flushed with the bloom of early life, the fair forms of feminine grace and loveliness, the dignified, accomplished manners of those more advanced in years, the music, sprightly conver-sation, wit, love, gaiety, and joyousness which characterized the whole scene – a sweet, profound, unwonted perception of God’s goodness captivated my soul.
Such intense feelings of piety I had never before experienced. I said to myself, “It has, indeed, pleased God ‘to make man but a little lower than the angels, and to crown him with glory and honor.’ If man is so beautiful here, what will he not become in that future state, where our loftiest ideals and actual attainments both will regularly advance in a progression that is infinite!” I was rapt in delightful visions of a spiritual world.
This thought took complete possession of my mind: God is too good not to provide for us something nobler, better, greater, more permanent, and more satisfying than the transitory possessions and pleasures of time. Can He present to us the chalice of existence, and then dash it from our lips as we begin to taste its joys? Is not God’s infinite love a pledge that He will never treat us so cruelly? Would a kind parent promise his children favors he never intended to bestow on them? Can God awaken irrepressible desires of continued, unending happiness, only to be crushed out and disappointed forever?
Nothing in mathematics is more certain than the doctrine that the inherent, essen-tial desires of our moral nature will be completely gratified. Can they be, if death is an eternal sleep?
If the Holy Spirit ever breathed on my heart, it was on that occasion, amid the music, thoughtlessness, levity, ceremonials, and sensuous attractions of an evening party. There, if ever, the inspirations of God touched and ennobled my soul.
An excerpt from:
Clapp, Theodore. Autobiographical sketches and recollections : during
a thirty-five years’ residence in New Orleans. Boston : Phillips, Sampson,
1857.
