people who ought to be gently but firmly
restrained: the person that talks too much and the person that sings
too much.

"This young minister undoubtedly meant well. He's about the kind of a
chap that I've seen in law-offices working for fifteen dollars a
week--industrious, zealous, and able up to a point, and all right
under supervision. He can be trusted to handle a small case with
intelligence and judgment. But I wouldn't go to him for instruction in
philosophy; and if I wished to relay the foundation of my life I
should, naturally, consult some other person. As one might expect, he
had searched the cellars of theology for canned goods, and with
extraordinary success.

"The young man had so lately arrived in this world he couldn't be
expected to know much about its affairs, and especially about those
of Samuel. It was graceful and decorous elocution. The Deacon
expressed his opinion of it in snores, and I longed to follow suit.

"The sermon ended with a dramatic recitation, and on our way out the
minister met us at the door.

"'You must manage to keep these people awake,' I suggested to him.

"'How am I to do it?' he asked.

"'Well, you might have a corps of pin-stickers carefully distributed
in the pews, or you could put the pins in your sermon. I recommend the
latter.'

"We went away with a sense of injury.

"'Let's keep trying,' said Betsey, 'until you find some one you would
care to hear. I would feel at home in any of our churches. These days
there's no essential difference between Congregationalists, Baptists,
Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. I've talked with all of
them, and their differences are dead and gone. They stand in the
printed creeds, but are no longer in the hearts of the people.'

"'Then why all these empty churches?' I asked. 'Why don't the people
get together in one great church?'

"'Don't talk about the millennium,' said Betsey. 'We must try to make
the best of what we have.'

"Well, in the next four Sundays we went from church to church to get
strength for our souls, and found only weakness and disappointment.
Immune from ridicule and satire, the sacred inefficiency of our pulpit
had waxed and grown and taken possession of the churches. And one
thought came to me as I listened. There should be a number of exits to
every Christian church, plainly marked: 'To be used in case of fire.'
Ancient history, dead philosophy, sophomoric periods, bad music, empty
pews, weary gr