esday came. The available chairs in the pastor's simple home had
been ranged in long rows on each side of the dining-room.

"May I sit here, dear, with my work?" said the pastor's wife, coming in
with a basket of stockings in one hand, her needle and yarn for darning
in the other.

She did not expect to be refused, nor was she, though a little girl of
five years old, her only child, held pertinaciously on to her dress. "I
may come too, papa; I am sure I may," said a sweet, cheery voice, and
only a pleasant smile was the reply. The mother sat down in one of the
chairs still at the table, and the little girl took joyously a place at
her side.

"I always like to hear your confirmation instructions, for many
reasons," said the wife. "I seem to take a fresh start in the right
direction with the children."

The pastor seated himself at the head of the table, with his books
before him, laying near them the list of the names of the class.

The pastor was a stout, sensible-looking man, with a plain, quiet face,
and a modest, shy air. Indeed, he was hardly at ease anywhere, except in
his home, or in the pulpit or chancel, where the sense of the sacredness
of his official duties made him unmindful of earthly witnesses.

Now he thought it a stay to have his wife with him; for the informal
nature of the meeting, and the beginning of something new, made the
whole at first an effort for him.

Perhaps the pastor, in the presence of persons of high standing, found
it impossible to forget his humble birth, and suspected that in some way
there was always a lack of gentility about him; while with companions of
more modest pretensions he must maintain the distant dignity which he
fancied appertained to his profession.

He was a straightforward, matter-of-fact man, who intended in all
things, temporal and spiritual, to do his duty. He believed fully in the
inspiration of the Bible from cover to cover, and was possibly convinced
that every word, and almost every letter, in the then authorized
Swedish version had a sanction not to be disputed. In his view the
sacraments, properly administered, were direct, undoubted channels of
grace. The organization of his church was perfect, he was sure, to the
least particular, and would have the approval of the apostles were they
now on earth, though during their lives the circumstances of their
surroundings might have made it impossible for them to have their
ministrations conducted according to