mes on a Saturday the young people in the mill would say, 'Well,
Bishop, where are you going to preach to-morrow?' and then, with the
brightest, kindest smile, he would tell them where his work for the
next day lay, and perhaps he would ask them to go with him; but on
their refusing, he would add, 'Ah, my lads, yo' want your hearts
changing by th' grace of God, and then yo' would be glad to run
onywhere in His Name.' As years grew on him and he became infirm, I
have seen him come into the mill on a Monday morning looking very
tired, and I have said I thought he was working too hard on Sundays.
'Canna do that,' he would reply; 'I would do a thausand toimes maar for
Jesus if I could;" and then brightening up, he would add, "I'd raather
wear aat loike gooid steel, than rust aat loike owd iron;' and he was
true to his word; he did wear out."

Many such testimonies might be added if it were necessary, all showing
that religion in "Little Abe" was the all-engrossing thing, but let
this suffice. It is delightful to see how a good man may live in the
midst of the ungodly, and keep his garments unspotted, and his name
unsullied by the adverse influences around him. What a rebuke such a
life is to many who excuse their looseness and irregularities because
they are thrown among the irreligious; and how stimulative it becomes
to others that are similarly situated, and trying to live consistently
in the midst of all their evil surroundings!

CHAPTER XVII.

Abe as a Class Leader

The Class-meeting is one of the best institutions in Methodism. It has
done as much as anything else, if not more, to keep up the spiritual
life of the churches; it has been a refuge for tens of thousands of
tempted ones; it has been a seasonable corrector to many who were just
beginning to fall into the paths of sin, and has brought them back to
Christ again; it has supplied the social need of our Christian faith,
and gathered friends together for spiritual communion; it has been a
safeguard against the devices of the devil by affording opportunities
for the disciples of our Lord to compare their experiences, tell their
temptations, and impart mutual encouragement to each other in the
Divine life; it is a natural, seemly, and modest vent for the spiritual
fire which glows and flashes in every heart that loves the Lord with
sincerity. It was almost self-appointed; it came to be, or grew out of
a class of circumstances which would at any other