terms; my pride
revolted, and so I emigrated. The gentlemanly and urbane conductors uv
the Pennsylvania Central passed me over their road. They did it with the
assistance uv two gentlemanly and urbane brakesmen, wich dropped me
tenderly across the track, out uv the hind eend uv the last car.

I found here a church buildin, uv wich the congregation had bin mostly
killed in bushwhackin expeditions, and announsin myself ez a
constooshnel preacher from Noo Gersey, succeeded in drawin together a
highly respectable awjience last Sunday.

Takin for a text the passage, "The wagis uv sin is death," I opened out
ez follows:--

"Wat is sin? Sin, my beloved hearers, is any deviashen from yer normal
condishen. Yoor beloved pastor hez a stumick and a head, wich is in
close sympathy with each other, so much so, indeed, that the principal
biznis uv the head is to fill the stumick, and mighty close work its
been for many years, yoo bet. Let yoor beloved pastor drink, uv a nite,
a quart or two more than his yoosual allowance, more than his stumick
absolootely demands, and his head swells with indignashen. The excess is
sin, and the ache is the penalty.

"The wagis uv sin is death! Punishment and sin is ez unseperable ez the
shadder is from the man--one is ez shoor to foller the other ez the
assessor is to kum around--ez nite is to foller day. The Dimekratic
party, uv wich I am a ornament, hez experienced the trooth uv this text.
When Douglas switched off, he sinned, and ez a consekence, Linkin wuz
elected, and the Sceptre departed from Israel. When--"

At this pint in the discourse, a old man in the back part uv the house
ariz and interrupted me. He sed he hed a word to say on that subjick
which must be sed, and ef I interrupted him till he got through he'd
punch my hed; whereupon I let him go on.

"Trooly," sez he, "the wages of sin is deth. I hev alluz bin a Dimecrat.
The old Dimocracy hez bin in the service uv sin for thirty years, and
the assortment uv death it hez received for wages is trooly surprisin.
Never did a party commence better. Jaxon wus a honist man, who knew that
righteousnis wuz the nashun's best holt. But he died, and a host uv
tuppenny politicians, with his great name for capital, jumped into his
old clothes, an undertook to run the party. Ef the Dimocracy coold hev
elected a honist man every fourth or fifth term, they mite hev ground
along for a longer period, but alars! Jaxon wuz the last of that style
we hed