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The Story of a Pioneer-Part15_Anna Howard Shaw(1847-1919)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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The time had come to follow Mrs. Addy's wishes

and go to Europe, and I sailed in the month of



June following my graduation, and traveled for three

months with a party of tourists under the direction



of Eben Tourgee, of the Boston Conservatory of

Music. We landed in Glasgow, and from there



went to England, Belgium, Holland, Germany,

France, and last of all to Italy. Our company in-



cluded many clergymen and a never-to-be-forgotten

widow whose light-hearted attitude toward the mem-



ory of her departedspouse furnished the comedy

of our first voyage. It became a pet diversion to



ask her if her husband still lived, for she always

answered the question in the same mournful words,



and with the same manner of irrepressible gaiety.

``Oh no!'' she would chirp. ``My dear departed



has been in our Heavenly Father's house for the

past eight years!''



At its best, the vacation without my friend was

tragically incomplete, and only a few of its incidents



stand out with clearness across the forty-six years

that have passed since then. One morning, I re-



member, I preached an impromptu sermon in the

Castle of Heidelberg before a large gathering; and



a little later, in Genoa, I preached a very different

sermon to a wholly different congregation. There



was a gospel-ship in the harbor, and one Saturday

the pastor of it came ashore to ask if some American



clergyman in our party would preach on his ship

the next morning. He was an old-time, orthodox



Presbyterian, and from the tips of his broad-soled

shoes to the severe part in the hair above his sancti-



monious brow he looked the type. I was not pres-

sent when he called at our hotel, and my absence



gave my fellow-clergymen an opportunity to play a

joke on the gentleman from the gospel-ship. They



assured him that ``Dr. Shaw'' would preach for him,

and the pastor returned to his post greatly pleased.



When they told me of his invitation, however, they

did not add that they had neglected to tell him Dr.



Shaw was a woman, and I was greatly elated by

the compliment I thought had been paid me.



Our entire party of thirty went out to the gospel-

ship the next morning, and when the pastor came



to meet us, lank and forbidding, his austere lips vainly

trying to curve into a smile of welcome, they intro-



duced me to him as the minister who was to deliver

the sermon. He had just taken my hand; he



dropped it as if it had burned his own. For a mo-

ment he had no words to meet the crisis. Then he



stuttered something to the effect that the situation

was impossible that his men would not listen to



a woman, that they would mob her, that it would

be blasphemous for a woman to preach. My asso-



ciates, who had so light-heartedly let me in for this

unpleasant experience, now realized that they must



see me through it. They persuaded him to allow

me to preach the sermon.



With deep reluctance the pastor finally accepted

me and the situation; but when the moment came



to introduce me, he devoted most of his time to

heartfelt apologies for my presence. He explained



to the sailors that I was a woman, and fervidly

assured them that he himself was not responsible



for my appearance there. With every word he ut-

tered he put a brick in the wall he was building be-



tween me and the crew, until at last I felt that I

could never get past it. I was very unhappy, very



lonely, very homesick; and suddenly the thought

came to me that these men, notwithstanding their



sullen eyes and forbidding faces, might be lonely

and homesick, too. I decided to talk to them as a



woman and not as a minister, and I came down from

the pulpit and faced them on their own level, look-






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