n things impossible.
But I didn't know but you might have some knowledge of how matters are
going, what plans the officials of the church had; they seem to have
agreed to tell me nothing."

"Well, I HAVE heard this much," responded Gorringe. "They're figuring on
getting the Soulsbys here to raise the debt and kind o' shake things up
generally. I guess that's about as good as settled. Hadn't you heard of
it?"

"Not a breath!" exclaimed Theron, mournfully. "Well," he added upon
reflection, "I'm sorry, downright sorry. The debt-raiser seems to me
about the lowest-down thing we produce. I've heard of those Soulsbys; I
think I saw HIM indeed once at Conference, but I believe SHE is the head
of the firm."

"Yes; she wears the breeches, I understand," said Gorringe
sententiously.

"I HAD hoped," the young minister began with a rueful sigh, "in fact, I
felt quite confident at the outset that I could pay off this debt, and
put the church generally on a new footing, by giving extra attention to
my pulpit work. It is hardly for me to say it, but in other places where
I have been, my preaching has been rather--rather a feature in the town
itself I have always been accustomed to attract to our services a good
many non-members, and that, as you know, helps tremendously from a money
point of view. But somehow that has failed here. I doubt if the average
congregations are a whit larger now than they were when I came in April.
I know the collections are not."

"No," commented the lawyer, slowly; "you'll never do anything in that
line in Octavius. You might, of course, if you were to stay here and
work hard at it for five or six years--"

"Heaven forbid!" groaned Mr. Ware.

"Quite so," put in the other. "The point is that the Methodists here
are a little set by themselves. I don't know that they like one another
specially, but I do know that they are not what you might call popular
with people outside. Now, a new preacher at the Presbyterian church,
or even the Baptist--he might have a chance to create talk, and make
a stir. But Methodist--no! People who don't belong won't come near the
Methodist church here so long as there's any other place with a roof on
it to go to. Give a dog a bad name, you know. Well, the Methodists here
have got a bad name; and if you could preach like Henry Ward Beecher
himself you wouldn't change it, or get folks to come and hear you."

"I see what you mean," Theron responded. "I'm not particularly su