d
many listeners; and never before, since his first ministration in the
valley, did Mr. Woods meet as disaffected a congregation, as on this
day.

The church of the Hutted Knoll, or, as the clergyman more modestly
termed it, the chapel, stood in the centre of the meadows, on a very
low swell of their surface, where a bit of solid dry ground had been
discovered, fit for such a purpose. The principal object had been to
make it central; though some attention had been paid also to the
picturesque. It was well shaded with young elms, just then opening into
leaf; and about a dozen graves, principally of very young children,
were memorials of the mortality of the settlement. The building was of
stone, the work of Jamie Allen's own hands, but small, square, with a
pointed roof, and totally without tower, or belfry. The interior was of
unpainted cherry, and through a want of skill in the mechanics, had a
cold and raw look, little suited to the objects of the structure.
Still, the small altar, the desk and the pulpit, and the large, square,
curtained pew of the captain, the only one the house contained, were
all well ornamented with hangings, or cloth, and gave the place
somewhat of an air of clerical comfort and propriety. The rest of the
congregation sat on benches, with kneeling-boards before them. The
walls were plastered, and, a proof that parsimony had no connection
with the simple character of the building, and a thing almost as
unusual in America at that period as it is to-day in parts of Italy,
the chapel was entirely finished.

It has been said that the morning of the particular Sabbath at which we
have now arrived, was mild and balmy. The sun of the forty-third degree
of latitude poured out its genial rays upon the valley, gilding the
tender leaves of the surrounding forest with such touches of light as
are best known to the painters of Italy. The fineness of the weather
brought nearly all the working people of the settlement to the chapel
quite an hour before the ringing of its little bell, enabling the men
to compare opinions afresh, on the subject of the political troubles of
the times, and the women to gossip about their children.

On all such occasions, Joel was a principal spokesman, nature having
created him for a demagogue, in a small way; an office for which
education had in no degree unfitted him. As had been usual with him, of
late, he turned the discourse on the importance of having correct
information