urified
th' heart o' th' blasphemer, and filled th' maath of the dumb with
songs of thanksgiving, see!--"See that the Lord is good!" Then raising
his voice and reaching out his arm he would exclaim, "There's noan so
bloind as those that weant see! but remember, yo' weant always be able
to play th' bloind man, God will crack a thunderbolt close to your ear
some day, and yo'll open your eyes to see th' judgment before yo', and
then what will yo' say?"

His only aim in what he said was to reach the people's hearts and bring
them to decision for Christ; that was the reward he coveted, nothing
more, nothing less; only let him see sinners coming to Jesus, and he
was happy. He would stay all night by a penitent, and never leave
until he knew the poor soul was safe in the kingdom of God. Time was
nothing to him; the long, dark journey home brought no misgivings to
his mind. When his work was done, and another soul safe in the arms of
Jesus, the humble village preacher would take his stick, or, as he
sometimes called it, his pony, and set off home, where many a time he
arrived faint and tired in the dead of the night, but with his soul
full of that peace which only a man feels who has ungrudgingly laid his
last remnant of energy at the feet of his Divine Master.

"WHO'S BEEN HERE?"

"Little Abe" used everything that came to hand in order to make the
Gospel plain, and enforce its teachings upon his hearers. Zeal for the
work, and a devout bias to his mind, enabled him to find religious
teaching in many things, wherein perhaps others would never have
discovered any.

He was in one of his sermons exhorting the people to watch against the
devil, lest he should gain an entrance to their hearts and spoil the
work of God. "Naa," said he, "I'll tell yo' some'at. Aar lads" (his
own sons) "took a fancy for a bit of garden; we had a little patch of
graand by aar haase; well, they set to wark, mended th' fence all
raand, dug up th' soil, threw aat th' stones and rubbish, raked it over
and marked it aat into beds, and planted flaars, and you may depend t'
lads wor praad o' their wark; for mony a week they kept doin a bit
noights and mornin's to keep it raight. By-and-bye, flaars came into
bloom, pinks, panseys, and other things came aat all over th' garden;
weren't they praad naa, and so wor I. One mornin', just afore we were
going t' th' mill, th' big lad went aat to look at th' garden a minute,
and th' first words he said w