upon the constant presentation of the tenets
of his creed that his presence in a town was always marked by the
enthusiasm and joy of religious disputation.

The Rev. Jasper Hayward, coloured, was a man quite of another stripe.
With him it was not so much what a man held as what he felt. The
difference in their characteristics, however, did not prevent him from
attending Dr. Warwick's series of sermons, where, from the vantage point
of the gallery, he drank in, without assimilating, that divine's words
of wisdom.

Especially was he edified on the night that his white brother held
forth upon the doctrine of predestination. It was not that he understood
it at all, but that it sounded well and the words had a rich ring as he
champed over them again and again.

Mr. Hayward was a man for the time and knew that his congregation
desired something new, and if he could supply it he was willing to take
lessons even from a white co-worker who had neither "de spi'it ner de
fiah." Because, as he was prone to admit to himself, "dey was sump'in'
in de unnerstannin'."

He had no idea what plagiarism is, and without a single thought of
wrong, he intended to reproduce for his people the religious wisdom
which he acquired at the white church. He was an innocent beggar going
to the doors of the well-provided for cold spiritual victuals to warm
over for his own family. And it would not be plagiarism either, for this
very warming-over process would save it from that and make his own
whatever he brought. He would season with the pepper of his homely wit,
sprinkle it with the salt of his home-made philosophy, then, hot with
the fire of his crude eloquence, serve to his people a dish his very
own. But to the true purveyor of original dishes it is never pleasant to
know that someone else holds the secret of the groundwork of his
invention.

It was then something of a shock to the Reverend Mr. Hayward to be
accosted by Isaac Middleton, one of his members, just as he was leaving
the gallery on the night of this most edifying of sermons.

Isaac laid a hand upon his shoulder and smiled at him benevolently.

"How do, Brothah Hayward," he said, "you been sittin' unner de drippin's
of de gospel, too?"

"Yes, I has been listenin' to de wo'ds of my fellow-laborah in de
vineya'd of de Lawd," replied the preacher with some dignity, for he saw
vanishing the vision of his own glory in a revivified sermon on
predestination.

Isaac linked his arm fa