portance, it was inherited, and a failing that neither
time nor experience could eradicate.

The two worthy dominies continued to try to convert sinners by
exhaustive arguments on predestination and infant damnation, but strange
to say, made little progress. A few of the good townspeople who were not
members of either church, as well as some that were, had been for many
years reading and thinking for themselves, and had come to realize that
the dry bones of Calvinistic argument had lost their force, and that the
Supreme Being was not the merciless God the churches had for years
depicted him, but rather a Father whose love and mercy was infinite. The
then ultra-liberal Unitarian idea had begun to spread and a few who had
outgrown the orthodox religion organized a Unitarian Society, and built
a modest church to worship in. Among these pioneers in thought were
Loring Camp and Jesse Olney, the latter the author of some of the best
school-books then used; a deep thinker and a leader in town affairs.
There were other thinking men, of course, who were prominent in this new
movement, but, as this simple story is not an historical narrative,
their names need not be mentioned. This new church and its followers of
course incurred the condemnation of the other two, especially the one
led by Parson Jotham, who exhausted all argument and invective to
convince his hearers that Unitarianism and sin were synonymous terms,
and that all the new church followers were surely slated for the fiery
furnace. So vigorous were his utterances in this connection, and so
explicit his description of the fire that is never quenched and the
torture that never ends, that it was said some of his hearers could
smell brimstone and discern a blue halo about his venerable white head.
One of his favorite arguments was to describe the intense joy those who
were saved through his scheme of salvation would feel when they came to
look over the heavenly walls and see the writhing agony of all sinners
in the burning lake below. When his eloquence reached this climax he
would cease pounding his open Bible and glare over the top of his tall
pulpit at the assembled congregation, in the hope, perhaps, of
discovering among them some Unitarian sinner who could thus be made to
realize his doom.

In justice to Parson Jotham it must be said that his intentions were of
the best, no doubt, but his estimate of the motive forces of human
action was too narrow. He believed the