ropping
pellets of gingerbread through the bars of the pew; but as you are not
accustomed to that way of making acquaintance, you decline all
overtures.

After the service is finished, the wagons, that have been disposed on
either side of the road, are drawn up before the door. The old Squire
meantime is sure to have a little chat with the parson before he leaves;
in the course of which the parson takes occasion to say that his wife
is a little ailing,--"a slight touch," he thinks, "of the rheumatiz."
One of the children too has been troubled with the "summer complaint"
for a day or two; but he thinks that a dose of catnip, under Providence,
will effect a cure. The younger and unmarried men, with red wagons
flaming upon bright yellow wheels, make great efforts to drive off in
the van; and they spin frightfully near some of the fat, sour-faced
women, who remark in a quiet, but not very Christian tone, that they
"fear the elder's sermon hasn't done the young bucks much good." It is
much to be feared in truth that it has not.

In ten minutes the old church is thoroughly deserted; the neighbor who
keeps the key has locked up for another week the creaking door; and
nothing of the service remains within except--Dr. Dwight's Version,--the
long music-books,--crumbs of gingerbread, and refuse stalks of despoiled
fennel.

And yet under the influence of that old, weather-stained temple are
perhaps growing up--though you do not once fancy it--souls possessed of
an energy, an industry, and a respect for virtue, which will make them
stronger for the real work of life than all the elegant children of a
city. One lesson, which even the rudest churches of New England
teach,--with all their harshness, and all their repulsive severity of
form,--is the lesson of Self-Denial. Once armed with that, and manhood
is strong. The soul that possesses the consciousness of mastering
passion, is endowed with an element of force that can never harmonize
with defeat. Difficulties it wears like a summer garment, and flings
away at the first approach of the winter of Need.

Let not any one suppose, then, that in this detail of the country life
through which our hero is led, I would cast obloquy or a sneer upon its
simplicity, or upon its lack of refinement. Goodness and strength in
this world are quite as apt to wear rough coats as fine ones. And the
words of thorough and self-sacrificing kindness are far more often
dressed in the uncouth sounds of