eded a little skill to cut the
several styles so that each one could recognize his own pattern and
appropriate the right garment. "Of course," I remarked, "every one has
heard of the garment of self-righteousness, though it may be that none
in this congregation are aware of ever having seen it. Yet, should you
chance to look upon it, with its straight seams and buckram collar, I am
quite sure you would not prefer it to my old coat, unseemly as it may
appear." Thus the sermon went on, to "cut to order" and "fit to
measure," until all the most flagrant styles of coats had been disposed
of, being careful, meantime, to institute the comparison in each case
with the old coat before the audience. The discourse was perfectly
ludicrous, but, like all of its kind, it took amazingly. Its financial
success was, doubtless, all that the writer of the note had intended. On
the next Sabbath morning the minister walked into church with a new
outfit of wearing apparel, from the crown of the hat to the soles of
the boots.

Watertown, from the first, was an unpromising field for ministerial
labor. The leading influences at the beginning, if not directly opposed,
were almost wholly indifferent to the claims of religion.

CHAPTER IX.

Waukesha--Old Prairieville Circuit--Changes--Rev. L.F. Moulthrop--Rev.
Hooper Crews--Rev. J.M. Walker--Rev. Washington Wilcox--Upper and Nether
Millstones--Our New Field--Revival--Four Sermons--Platform Missionary
Meetings--The Orator--Donning the Eldership--The Collection.

The General Conference of 1848 divided the Rock River Conference and
formed the Wisconsin. The first session of the new Conference was held
at Kenosha July 12th, and I was stationed at Waukesha.

It will be remembered that Prairieville was included in the Watertown
charge in 1839, and formed one of the appointments established at that
early day by Brother Frink. In the following year, when the Summit
charge was formed, Prairieville fell into the new circuit. In 1841
Prairieville took the name of the charge, and henceforth became the
mother of circuits in this portion of the Territory. Rev. John G.
Whitcomb was appointed to the charge in 1842, and Rev. L.F. Moulthrop
in 1843.

Brother Moulthrop entered the Conference in 1840, and was first
appointed to the Racine Mission. In 1841 he was stationed at Troy, where
he performed a vast amount of labor and gathered many souls for the
Master. He remained a second year and had for a coll