This bein' Hard-shell Sunday," said the Bishop that afternoon when
his congregation met, "cattle of that faith will come up to the front
rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these exercises."

"It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell lodge, I may be a
little rusty on the grip an' pass word, but I'm a member in good
standin' if I am rusty."

There was some laughing at this, from the other members, and after
the Hard-shells had come to the front the Bishop caught the infection
and went on with a sly wink at the others.

"The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I jined any other
lodge; for makin' honorable exception, the other churches don't know
the diff'r'nce betwixt twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan
pine-top.

"The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I sed. I hadn't
sampled none of the others"--he whispered aside--"an' I didn't know
there was any better licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little
riper, the Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of
them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub an'
champagne.

"A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is a good thing for
any religion. I've knowed many a man to take a dram jes' in time to
keep him out of a divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do
anybody no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef he'd a
stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But one of these
old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with him all night onct, an'
tor't the old man how to make a mint julip; an' when I went down the
next year to hold services his wife told me the good old man had been
gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed, 'till a
little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im ter mix greens in
his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself to death.'

"There's another thing I like about two of the churches I'm in--the
Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians--an' that is special Providence. If
I didn't believe in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.

"My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' we're all babes in
God's sight.

"The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to some of our po'
boys the last sermon that many of 'em ever heard. An' I told 'em not
to dodge the nex' day, but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men,
for ever' shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should hit.

"In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer, but chief of