administered, because they cannot agree as to terms of
communion."

"Well," said I, "tell us what you did in the afternoon."

"In the afternoon," he continued, "I went to meeting, and, when the
ordinance was to be administered, I took a seat in a pew alone. I
watched to see which aisle the good deacon would serve, and concluded to
sit there, so as not to seem clandestinely seeking from another deacon,
who would not know me, my inhibited bread; for I wished to be honorable
in the transaction, and, besides, I desired that my friend should see
me, and, if he had changed his mind, give me the symbols. So I sat where
he would pass, in a pew by myself, but he did not look at me."

"How did it make you feel?" said I.

"In some respects," said he, "I never enjoyed my thoughts more at the
administration of the Supper. I had no feeling of resentment or
ill-will. The exclusion of four fifths of the Christian family from the
Lord's table by one portion of it, for such a reason, seemed to leave me
in such good company, that I said to myself, 'They that be with us are
more than they that be with them.' I rejoiced in Robert Hall, John
Bunyan, and others like them. I thought of that interesting piece in
Bunyan's works, 'Water Baptism no Bar to Communion.' I questioned
whether this church and its sister churches would not hear a mild
reproof from the lips of Christ,--'I was a stranger, and ye took me not
in.' Certainly they could not say with Job, 'If I have eaten my morsel
alone.' Using the table of Christ for a wall or bars against
acknowledged Christians,--that table, that Supper, which, of all places
and scenes, is most suggestive of communion and fellowship,--seemed to
me so great a mistake, that I could not in charity regard it as a sin,
because, as such, it would be so criminal. I always believed, before,
that the mode of baptism was not essential to Christian fellowship; but
that afternoon I saw it, I felt it; I worked out the sum myself, and saw
the demonstration, I felt very happy in belonging to the great host of
God's people who can commune together, however much they differ."

"While I was sitting there alone, put aside, one might say, by my
brothers and sisters, whom I had, as it were, run in so cordially to
meet, one thought came over me, as they were feasting with Christ, which
made me weep. I thought of the possibility of being set aside in the
great day. I said, to myself:

'I love to meet thy people now,