nces of the same sort, scarcely less
grievous. That this state of things must be altered was clear.

The unusually large local attendance upon the sessions of the Conference
had given some of the more guileless of visiting brethren a high notion
of Tecumseh's piety; and perhaps even the most sophisticated stranger
never quite realized how strictly it was to be explained by the anxiety
to pick out a suitable champion for the fierce Presbyterian competition.
Big gatherings assembled evening after evening to hear the sermons of
those selected to preach, and the church had been almost impossibly
crowded at each of the three Sunday services. Opinions had naturally
differed a good deal during the earlier stages of this scrutiny, but
after last night's sermon there could be but one feeling. The man for
Tecumseh was the Reverend Theron Ware.

The choice was an admirable one, from points of view much more exalted
than those of the local congregation.

You could see Mr. Ware sitting there at the end of the row inside the
altar-rail--the tall, slender young man with the broad white brow,
thoughtful eyes, and features moulded into that regularity of strength
which used to characterize the American Senatorial type in those
far-away days of clean-shaven faces and moderate incomes before the War.
The bright-faced, comely, and vivacious young woman in the second side
pew was his wife--and Tecumseh noted with approbation that she knew
how to dress. There were really no two better or worthier people in the
building than this young couple, who sat waiting along with the rest to
hear their fate. But unhappily they had come to know of the effort being
made to bring them to Tecumseh; and their simple pride in the triumph of
the husband's fine sermon had become swallowed up in a terribly anxious
conflict of hope and fear. Neither of them could maintain a satisfactory
show of composure as the decisive moment approached. The vision of
translation from poverty and obscurity to such a splendid post as
this--truly it was too dazzling for tranquil nerves.

The tedious Bishop had at last begun to call his roll of names, and the
good people of Tecumseh mentally ticked them off, one by one, as the
list expanded. They felt that it was like this Bishop--an unimportant
and commonplace figure in Methodism, not to be mentioned in the same
breath with Simpson and Janes and Kingsley--that he should begin with
the backwoods counties, and thrust all these r