cal beauty
and advantages; embosomed in hills, embellished with trees, and
watered by a willow-shaded stream that meandered through its centre.
Situated, too, within twenty miles of the great emporium, and skirted
by a railway leading to it, the cultivators of a soil, that ever
fulfilled more abundantly the hopes of the husbandman, could ask
nothing more favorable to the ready disposal of their crops. The
inhabitants of Green Valley were mostly farmers, who, besides "owing
no man any thing," had each a comfortable dwelling and ample outhouses
of his own, nothing better than his neighbors, but equaling theirs in
the well-to-do look of the fences, the garden and door-yard. That the
village was originally settled by Quakers, and half peopled by this
drab-coated sect at the date of our story, no stranger needed to
inquire, after passing through its straight-cut roads, or breathing
its air of purity and quietude. Long had its simple-minded,
true-hearted people lived in the daily enjoyment of mutual kindness
and love; till contentment seemed written not only on the broad brims
of the farmers, but on the bridles of their docile beasts, and on
their very implements of husbandry. In the course of time, other
religious denominations were established in Green Valley; but as the
descendants of Penn continued to "work in quietness and eat their own
bread," strangers intermeddled not with them; while the savor of their
peaceful spirits seemed so diffused among other sects, that all
"agreed to disagree" with one another, and for years unbroken harmony
was the result. But _we_ have only to do with the Congregational
church of Green Valley, and will forthwith introduce the reader to the
shepherd of this little flock. Mr. Worthiman was a plain man of
God--middle-aged, of respectable scholastic attainments, and one who,
for his sound judgment and exemplary "walk and conversation," had ever
a "good report of them that were without." The law of kindness dwelt
in his heart and on his lips, and in all the offices of exemplar,
teacher and comforter of his charge none was more worthy than he. The
church at its earliest organization, without a dissenting voice,
invited Mr. Worthiman to become its pastor--his prayer dedicated the
house of worship, and each succeeding Sabbath for a series of years
found him at his post, breaking the Bread of Life to a grateful,
confiding people. Nor were his pastoral duties less regularly
fulfilled: One afternoon