we only want a
little fragment of truth to hang our sentiments upon?"

There was bitterness in the tone in which Clifton spoke. It hinted of
the living death of a proud, disappointed man, who has renounced his
youth of high motives and warm ideas, who has learned to contemn his
boyish ambition to do some great thing for the world. Truly it is better
to consume in the flame of a fierce sectarianism than to permit the
spirit of youth to die when the gray hairs come.

"Nay, Sir," said I, "it is for you to be heartily thankful for this
exuberant enthusiasm which has come to town. The complaint of the day
is, that the doctrines of Christianity have either dissolved into
abstractions or hardened into formalisms; and here you have a crop of
fresh insights to direct aright, and to keep from degenerating into
fanatical clamor."

"But how satisfy or control these crazy people who begin by ignoring the
creeping pace of Time? Why, here is Miss Hurribattle, who has been these
two hours beating into me, as with logical sledge-hammers, that it is my
duty to denounce Deacon Greenlaw from the pulpit. The argument, to her
mind, is overwhelming, as thus: Intoxicating fluids cause the breaking
of all the commandments; cider, if one drinks enough of it, is
intoxicating; Deacon Greenlaw presses apples, and sells the juice; he
therefore upholds and encourages the aforesaid commandment-breaking;--it
is the business of the pulpit to denounce sinners persisting in their
sin, therefore, etc., etc.,--you perceive the conclusion. In short, if I
do not instantly take the ruts of their narrow logic, and go about
pounding into some and propounding unto others their pet scheme of
regeneration,--why, I am a wolf in the sheep-fold, the Antichrist of
prophecy, and I know not what other accursed thing. And here is truly
the alternative,--to stagnate in a lifeless church, or to join these
ravers in their breakneck leap at the Millennium."

"There is a noble element in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested,
"and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of
attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you
urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This
impulse,--fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,--might
it not be constrained, or at least directed?"

"Never by me!" exclaimed Clifton, haughtily. "I should have to commit
myself to all the wild Saturnalia of their moralities before