l sweetness and no power;
but I want my religion like I want my medicine: I want it strong, an' I
want it bitter, so 's I 'll know I 've got it." In Fred Brent the sense
of humour had not been entirely crushed, and the expression was too much
for his gravity. He bowed his head and covered his mouth with his hand.
He made no sound, but there were three pairs of eyes that saw the
movement,--Miss Prime's, Eliphalet Hodges', and the Rev. Mr. Simpson's.
Miss Prime's gaze was horrified, Mr. Simpson's stern; but in the eye of
Mr. Hodges there was a most ungodly twinkle.

When Dan'l Hastings had finished his exhortation--which was in reality
an arraignment of Thomas Donaldson's medical heresies--and sat down, the
Rev. Mr. Simpson arose, and, bending an accusing glance upon the
shrinking boy, began: "I perceive on the part of some of the younger
members of the congregation a disposition towards levity. The house of
God is not the place to find amusement. I never see young people
deriding their elders without thinking of the awful lesson taught by the
Lord's judgment upon those wicked youths whom the she-bears devoured. I
never see a child laughing in church without trembling in spirit for his
future. Some of the men whom I have seen in prison, condemned to death
or a life of confinement, have begun their careers just in this way,
showing disrespect for their elders and for the church. Beware, young
people, who think you are smart and laugh and titter in the sanctuary;
there is a prison waiting for you, there is a hell yawning for you.
Behold, there is death in the pot!"

With a terrible look at the boy, Mr. Simpson sat down. There was much
craning of necks and gazing about, but few in the church would have
known to whom the pastor's remarks were addressed had not Miss Prime, at
their conclusion, sighed in an injured way, and, rising with set lips,
led the culprit out, as a criminal is led to the scaffold. How the boy
suffered as, with flaming face, he walked down the aisle to the door,
the cynosure of all eyes! He saw in the faces about him the accusation
of having done a terrible thing, something unheard of and more wicked
than he could understand. He felt revolted, child as he was, at the
religion that made so much of his fault. Inwardly, he vowed that he
would never "get religion" or go into a church when he was big enough to
have his own way.

They had not gone far when a step approached them from behind, and
Eliphalet Ho