other, and I hold these men as (unconscious) liars. This is strong language; but I cannot use any milder phraseology. When I see a man get up in the pulpit, and launch out into fiction, I set him down as either a knave or a fool, in so far as he departs from the truth.

'You say that you do n't believe another man in the congregation noticed what the Doctor pointed out; but I did: and I have no doubt a dozen others in the church did so too. There are few who care to speak out; but every such blunder,' as you term it, Mr. Parson, increases the strong under-current of distrust toward a minister of this sort; and if he persists in loose declamation, he must not be surprised when at length he finds a majority of his congregation entirely dissatisfied, both with his preaching and himself. If half the world are fools, one half are men of sense; and in the long run, the men of sense carry the day.'

"Though you are very severe, Jack, against the cloth, yet I must own that you are right. I never took your view of the matter before, but I deem it the right one.'

I find that I have not been mistaken in you, by the way in which you take my rough hints; and if I have wounded your feelings in the least, suffer me to disclaim any intention to do so.'

'Not in the least, Jack. Both you and the Doctor are in the right, and I do not complain.'

Then I will go on,' said the 'Squire, while he resumed his comfortable seat, after poking the grate a little; being reminded of the fire by the storm of snow which beat against the windows. I can bear almost any thing from the pulpit except falsehood. Even coarseness itself is the more acceptable. By the way, I recollect an instance of coarseness in the pulpit which at the time shocked me not a little. I am not over fastidious, but this was a trifle more than I could bear; and to change the subject a moment, I will tell the thing.

When I was an under-graduate in College, Protracted Meetings' were all the rage in that part of the country, and our good faculty used to suspend the college exercises, sometimes for a whole week, that we might attend the preachment of some' great gun,' and share in the general excitement, for the good of our souls.' This term, by-the-by, 'good of the soul,' is somewhat more ancient than some imagine. Plato, in his 'Tenth Dialogue on Law,' uses it in the same sense in which it is used now-a-days. Well, to go on; one winter term a terrible 'Revival' broke out down-town, among the Methodists and Baptists, and we were all turned loose to hear BROTHER SMITH,' the new preacher, just from the West.' For two or three days I stuck to my room, and read the 'Attic Nights' of Aulus Gellius; but finding my section' entirely deserted, and hearing more and more of the wonderful powers of Brother Smith,' I put on my over-coat one evening, and floundered through the snow down to the Baptist meeting-house,' just before the services began. The house was crammed; students, towns-people, professors, and a pretty good sprinkling' of mischievous-looking

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farmers' daughters from the country around. After much elbow. ing and squeezing, I got a stand in the broad-aisle near the pulpit; and in a few minutes the preacher came up, enveloped in a huge buffalo over-coat, buttoned with half-dollars, and a red-and-yellow muffler about his neck and face, each particular fibre of which stood out stiff and white with frost. As he was a little late, he gave out the hymn in his full dress, minus the red-and-yellow muffler.

While the audience was singing, Brother Smith' denuded himself of the over-coat; and made the prayer and read the Scriptures in a pepper-and-salt surtout with red velvet cuffs and collar. His voice had a peculiar twang; whether entirely original or modified by back-woods association, I could not make out, but at any rate it was the most singular voice that I ever heard. He chose for his text: The way of the transgressor is hard;' and evinced one good habit of mind, in sticking to it through thick and thin. There was indeed beside this a certain eloquence about the man, which forced you to listen to, and remember all he said. His imagination was strong and vivid, yet so admirably was it in control, that you could not if you would lose sight of what he was driving at: but his utter ignorance of every thing save the more obvious spirit of the Gospel, and the scenes and characters of western life, filled you with perfect amazement that so much native talent and logical power could be found in one whose knowledge was so limited.

He began his discourse by telling us that he did not know the alphabet until he was twenty-three, and that he acquired it then from the printed advertisements on his powder-canisters, and the stamps on his lead and rifle-barrel, with the learned assistance of a fellow trapper, who, in his younger days, had been to a woman's school' one quarter, in some part of the Eastern States. Then he adduced the life and fortunes of this fur-capped forest teacher as an illustration of the truth of the text. Crooked Jim' indulged in whiskey, and while making the present of a kiss to a young Indian woman, was shot through the head by her husband. His description of the scene was thrilling; and I ceased to wonder at the good people for crowding to hear him. Indeed I lost all thought of his pepper-and-salt surtout until he began to pull it off, with the remark, that it was all-nation hot inside the clap-boards,' but not a 'priming' to what it was down where the rich man is crying for water;' another illustration of the truth that the way of the transgressor is hard.'

'It was not long before he pulled off his coat also; telling us that the apostles never wore coats when they preached; as it was always warm weather, where they travelled; and for his part, he did not see why, if he was too warm, he could not go in shirt-sleeves, as well as they.'

'After dwelling on the individual transgressor for an hour or so, in his rapid, extemporaneous, and forcibly-gesticulated manner, he passed to mankind at large; and drew a picture of the last times and the judgment day. Really, I have never heard so sublime a description; yet it was so interspersed with idiosyncracies, as to ex

cite one to uncontrollable laughter, at the same time that the heart was beating with fear.

"When the last trump shall sound,' said he, 'the inhabitants of the earth shall come from the four quarters of the globe, from the sea and from the grave, before their Judge: and when he gives his sentence, while the good shall march in platoons and battalions into Heaven, the wicked shall be rim-racked and hub-broken, and shall wheel by kingdoms into hell!

Then he alluded to the Holy Scriptures, as our only guide to salvation The Bible,' said he, 'is so called, because it is a by-Bill, laid by by the apostles; and in 'that day' if you have not paid it to the last copper, you will find it an almighty hard bill to settle.'

In conclusion, he compared human life to a game at cards. I wish I could recollect the whole picture which he drew, but it was as just and terrible, and as profoundly original as Retz's picture of The Game of Life.' It is not education nor refinement which gives ideas to genius, although they do give the appropriate dress in which these ideas are preserved.

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My friends,' said he, after what we have seen, we may liken this life to a game at old sledge,' (all-fours, I believe ;) 'where the devil and his angels, and Jesus and his angels are standing, looking on to see the righteous playing with the wicked.'

'Here he described their appearance, and the emotions which appeared in every face; and then finally ended by saying, that while the righteous get High, Low, Jack, and the Game, the sinner gets skunked to d n!'

'I can readily conceive,' said the Parson, 'how much you must have been shocked by the coarseness of this man; but I want to know if, on the whole, you were not made better by him?'

'Whether better or worse, at any rate I remember his thoughts, and sympathize with his evident genius for oratory. I was not 'converted,' if that is what you mean,' said the 'Squire. There was but one in college who was so; and the last instance of his regeneration, that came to my knowledge, was six months after the revival,' when he staid away from chapel, one Sunday, on the plea of sickness, and as I was told, remained all day in the rooms of a wild Soph., playing Brag,' at eighteen-pence a corner!'

I am sorry, Jack,' said the Parson, fidgetting about on the lounge, arranging his dickey and tapping the carpet with his foot, I am sorry, Jack, that you have so bad an opinion of 'revivals.' To be sure, I have my own doubts of their usefulness, as at present carried on, but I must think that in themselves they are of great value. Men seldom perform great actions unless under the influence of powerful excitement; and it is certainly a great action to conquer one's self, and turn the whole current of one's life into an entirely new channel. I have often wished that there was power enough in my preaching to create a constant revival in my own church and congregation.'

'I don't!' answered the 'Squire. There is nonsense enough in the world now, and I do n't want to see any addition to it.

The

cooler a man is, the better, in religion as in every thing else. This ranting, spasmodic piety is my abhorrence. Who wants to see a man all in a fluster about the gravest subject in the world; that which you term his eternal welfare?'

It is true,' as you say, that great actions are performed under the influence of powerful excitement; but it is an habitual excitement, thoroughly inwrought into the soul; and so far from interfering with the cool exercise of the reason, gives it the widest, highest, and freest play. Such is the excitement which the love of great principles, or a lofty ambition, gives a man. But the momentary excitement which is raised in a 'revival' is not the thing. It dies away generally in a week after, although a man may, for consistency's sake, (that is, fear of the world,) drag out a whole life with a mask over his face; bitterly repenting all the while that he ever committed himself in the way he did before the public. Oh, the mock piety of which the world is full, is a stench in the nostrils of a true man! He loathes it as he would a dead carcass, and turns from it with a shudder! Give me frozen indifference, or absolute atheism, rather than this stupendous falsehood!

'You, my dear Parson, are somewhat different from other ministers whom I know. You dare to speak out what you feel, without stopping to ask what your people will say of you for it. There are some who seem to watch the drift of public opinion, and the different tendencies of their people, so as always to be on the popular side, whether it be right or wrong. But after all, what good will my protest against them do? They are men, like their fellows, and I suppose must take the surest way to get a living, and keep soul and body together. The world will wag on, and gradually improve, century after century, though not by their help. They are as falsehearted and cringing as the great mass of mankind, and ought not to be found fault with because they show out their nature.'

'You are a confirmed fault-finder, I fear,' said the Parson. If you knew the trials of the pulpit you would mingle a little pity with your contempt. We do all we can, as well as we can, and get illwill for our reward. If we are faithful to rebuke sin, we are hated. If lenient, we are despised. Between two stools, we come to the ground.'

'A clergyman of the Unitarian faith told me of a poor fellow who was frightened out of the pulpit, by the dread of its self-denying and onerous duties. He was a theological student at Cambridge, and in his senior year. Doctor Kirkland was then President of the University, and one day took opportunity, in his study, to give the young candidate some wholesome advice for his future life.

"You have,' said the President,' many trials to undergo, Mr. Jones, in the profession which you have chosen. Economy of time, labor and money, however, will soften many of them. You will most probably settle in the country, on a small salary. You will get tired of living alone as I do, and then you will get married. Your wife's dresses, your house-rent, your pig, your horse and cow, and perhaps children, will be much more expensive than a bachelor's life at a

boarding-house. The salary which was before hardly sufficient will then be totally inadequate, without the strictest economy. You must strive to please your people so that your salary may be promptly paid. Be very careful in your life, and intercourse with your parishioners, or you will make enemies. But above all things be economical. Each week you will have cares enough to make an old man of you; but hardest of all will be the trial when Saturday comes and finds your two sermons for the next day yet unwritten. This will be the hardest of all. But the sermons must be penned. Even in writing them you must practice economy. And now let me warn you to use it on every occasion, or your hopes of usefulness will be dissipated. Remember this one piece of advice, and you will always be grateful to me for the suggestion: When Saturday afternoon comes, and you sit down to write your sermons, and find your thoughts coming slowly, and good for nothing when they do come, don't get out of patience, and fidget about in your chair, or you will wear out your whatd'ye-call-'ems!'

Mr. Jones was so intimidated at the prospect of clerical trials and this strict economy, that he fled in dismay from the profession, and became at last a doctor of medicine.

The Parson's anecdote tempered the Squire's acidity, so that he declared himself unwilling farther to pursue a topic which the Parson's good humor had so happily evaded. The Doctor smiled, but the lieutenant was still gazing into the fire. Martha here came in to arrange the table with a cloth, and bring on the sandwich and wine-glasses; while the Squire opened a panel of the side-board to get a choice bottle of wine and some old Taburas.'

While Martha was going out, the lieutenant followed her with his eyes, and said, as she shut the door, Well, Jack, you have a pretty servant there; but that has nothing to do with what I have been thinking about this evening. Some other time we will converse on what has interested me not a little.'

The sandwiches, wine, and cigars disappeared as the clock showed a quarter to ten; and after his friends were gone, the Squire opened his chamber door, threw some asbes on the grate, turned down the lamp, and found his way to bed completely in the dark; and that night had a puzzling dream; wherein the grate-full of glowing coals held a bout at quarter-staff with the Tattleton Gazette;' and the village steeple danced on a snow-bank with Mrs. Otis, the housekeeper; while Martha, metamorphosed, Boz'-wise, into the library clock, was ticking, in plain words: • Be eco-nomi-cal! be eco-nomi