the admirable order so long
established in Sweden. Martin Luther he looked upon as having a kind of
supplemental apostleship, almost as incontestable as that of Peter
himself. Luther's catechism was for him the best medium for imparting
religious instruction to children, and for strengthening the Christian
life of young people approaching maturity. With this sound, hearty
belief in what he was called on to teach, and with the rules for his
ministrations, his work was simple and most agreeable.

The pastor was not an emotional man. He had never been deeply stirred by
religious feelings of any kind. He had had no agonies of penitence, no
distressing doubts, no strong struggles with temper, no vivid thought of
the possibility of his being excluded from eternal blessedness. His
heavenly Father was to him rather a theological abstraction than a near
and ever-loving friend. The Saviour was to him more an element in a
perfect creed than the Deliverer--the hand stretched out to the drowning
man--the one hope of poor tempted humanity.

The pastor was, in his way, a good man, a kind man, an unselfish, true,
sincere man. Peaceful he lived, peaceful he ministered, and yet heart to
heart he came with no human brother. With no human brother, we say; but
there was one woman whose life interpenetrated his, if they did not in
all things come heart to heart. Her presence gave him a sense of
sunshine and quiet happiness that was the greatest joy of which his
nature was capable.

Merry, impulsive, devoted, self-sacrificing by nature, the whole
existence of the pastor's wife was pervaded by a Christian life that
exalted her naturally lovely traits, and made her shortcomings the
source of a sweet, childlike penitence that was almost as lovely and
attractive as her virtues. She had soon found that the deep language of
her inner soul was to her husband an unknown tongue. Of her spiritual
struggles and joys and exaltations she did not speak to him or to any
other human being. They were her secret with her God and Saviour. Yet
her husband stood to her on a pinnacle, as rounded in character,
blameless in life, and perfect in his ministrations. Almost angelic he
seemed to her when he stood in the chancel, and in his deep, melodious
voice sang all the parts of the service that the church rules allowed to
be so given.

The pastor's sermons were excellent compositions. Compositions they were
in the strictest sense of the word. The epistles and g