alm. In a weak
and broken voice he said: "Mr. Preacher, I suppose you noticed my
farm. My wife and I came here more than fifty years ago. We were
just married. It was a forest then and the land was covered with
stones. I cut down the trees, burned the logs, picked up the
stones and laid the walls. My wife spun and wove and worked every
moment. We raised and educated our children--denied ourselves.
During all those years my wife never had a good dress, or a decent
bonnet. I never had a good suit of clothes. We lived on the
plainest food. Our hands, our bodies, are deformed by toil. We
never had a vacation. We loved each other and the children. That is
the only luxury we ever had. Now, I am about to die and you ask me
if I am prepared. Mr. Preacher, I have no fear of the future, no
terror of any other world. There may be such a place as hell--but
if there is, you never can make me believe that it's any worse than
old Vermont."

So they told of a man who compared himself with his dog. "My dog,"
he said, "just barks and plays--has all he wants to eat. He never
works--has no trouble about business. In a little while he dies,
and that is all. I work with all my strength. I have no time to
play. I have trouble every day. In a little while I will die, and
then I go to hell. I wish that I had been a dog."

Well, while the cold weather lasted, while the snows fell, the
revival went on, but when the Winter was over, when the steamboat's
whistle was heard, when business started again, most of the
converts "back-slid" and fell again into their old ways. But the
next Winter they were on hand, ready to be "born again." They
formed a kind of stock company, playing the same parts every Winter
and backsliding every Spring.

The ministers who preached at these revivals were in earnest. They
were zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them
science was the name of a vague dread--a dangerous enemy. They did
not know much, but they believed a great deal. To them hell was a
burning reality--they could see the smoke and flames. The Devil was
no myth. He was an actual person, a rival of God, an enemy of
mankind. They thought that the important business of this life was
to save your soul--that all should resist and scorn the pleasures
of sense, and