of
tears, and exclaimed, "Why won't they let him come? If he only came
and stood in the pulpit for us to see him, it would do." Old Abe was a
great favourite with children, and he was always fond of them;
sometimes old age turns folks sour, crabby, and snarlish with children,
but age only mellowed him, and made him more loving and loved.

"WHERE'S 'T YOUNG PRAACHER?"

An amusing incident came under my notice during the time I was minister
at Wellhouse in the Huddersfield Circuit. I was in the front garden
one windy morning, attending to a few plants, and endeavouring to
protect them against the gusty wind, when I thought I heard someone
calling my name, but on looking up and seeing no one I resumed my task.
In a moment or two I heard someone say, "Bless th' Lord! I've managed
it at last, hurrah!" and on looking up, I saw Little Abe struggling
along the steep pathway in a field just in front of my house, his head
bare, his hat in his hand, his white locks tossed in wild confusion by
the gale, yet holding on by their roots, refusing to part from their
place of nativity.

"Well, I declare, here's Little Abe tipping about in the wind like a
shuttlecock." Out I ran, and getting hold of his arm towed him into
dock.

"Whatever has brought you here in such a gale of wind, Abe?"

"Hurrah! I'st see him naa," was his only response.

"See who?"

"Why, th' young praacher to be sure; ha'nt ye gotten a young praacher
in your haase? I've come to see him." So laughing heartily at Abe's
way of installing new members into the ministry, I opened the door and
pushed him into the house. My wife was as much astonished at his
arrival as I was, yet very glad to see him, especially when he inquired
"Where's t' young praacher? Let's see him. Come, hold him up; there,
naa, put him on my lap and let me have a bit of talk to him." And down
he sat, and the "young praacher," at that time having advanced to the
age of eight or ten weeks, was placed in the old man's lap, where he
lay complacently winking his eye at Abe while he told him how he had
left home after breakfast and walked over the hills about five miles in
a storm of wind on purpose to make the acquaintance of this "young
praacher" whose name was already on the Circuit plan. And there he
stayed for the day, talking, singing, and communing with his young
friend till evening, when we sent him home by the train.

Well, the time came when dear old Abe visited his friend