Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/70

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��Matthew Harvey.

��Patterson for town-clerk." In fact, it was a small perversion of formal- ities. Joab Patterson was a popular town-clerk, and was frequently re- elected, as may be said of other town- clerks ; and no one was deprived of the liberty of his ballot by Matthew Harvey's remark. But in the same position, there are few men who would take the responsibility of so much freedom of public utterance. In Matthew Harvey's case there was only an indulgence of a light pleas- antr^' ; in another's case, it might be a construed usurpation of personal privilege. A match is a very little thins:, but it sometimes kindles a great fire.

According to local report, in one instance at least, Matthew Harvey had his instinct of inforraalism put to a peculiar test. In religion, in early life he had been more or less inti- mately associated with the Baptist church, which, in its functional eccle- siasticism, has ever been eminently democratic. We can easily conceive that such a church would have offered opportunities congenial to such a man as Matthew Harvey. In Hop- kinton, however, he became connected with the Protestant Episcopal church. He subscribed to the ecclesiastical constitution of Christ's church, or- ganized in 1803. Christ's church was truly Protestant Episcopal, but its worship was conducted with a lesser ritualistic exactness than has obtained in St. Andrew's church, reconstructed from the elements of Christ's church in 1827, when Matthew Harvey be- came a vestryman of the new or- ganization. Rev. Moses B. Chase, founder of St. Andrew's church, in- troduced into its worship the practice

��of kneeling at the chancel rail to re- ceive the communion from the priest. Matthew Harvey was impatient at this innovation. It is said he turned his back in church when the most solemn Christian rite was in progress. We can excuse him, having a large measure of the instinct of informal- ism. He was perhaps thinking of ritualistic bondage, prelatical usur- pation, hierarchical inquisition. With- out special evidence in the case, we presume Matthew Harvey overcame his aversion to the eucharistic genu- flexion. He perhaps eventually con- ceived that to reverently kneel and receive a crumb of bread and a drop of wine from the hands of a pious priest doesn't defile a man. If any harm results, it is probably in conse- quence of some debasing motive or monstrous interpretation implied in the act.

Let us now pass from the anecdo- j tal stage of reflection to turn to a pos- itive assertion. Among all the ob- servations made of Matthew Harvey, we have never heard one to his per- sonal hurt. Apparently he had no enemies. Personally considered, this is an admirable fact. Socially enter- tained, it is suggestive of philosophi- cal deduction. In a legitimate sense, Matthew Harvey must have been a kind of negative character. Had he been a man of eminently positive character, he would have said or done something that would have provoked local controversy, aversion, and ani- mosity. Yet this characteristic neg- ativeness is an important factor in society. Without instances of its individual illustration, society cannot exist. In Matthew Harvey's case it was of the utmost importance. By it

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