divine to whom reference has already been made, was known to take no
dinner in the interval of public worship, substituting for that repast a
slice or two of bread and a few glasses of wine. Why such a fact, when
everybody drank more or less wine, or something stronger, every day of
the week, should have alarmed the conscience of Miss Betty Timmins, a
maiden lady of a certain age, it seems difficult to conjecture.
Nevertheless, she made a solemn call, one day, upon her pastor, and with
such apology as she could muster for impertinence--at length out with it:
"I must tell you, reverend sir, they do say you drink." "Drink! Miss
Timmins," said Mr. Murray; "to be sure I do, don't you? How can anybody
live without drinking?" and the discomfited spinster retreated. Mr.
Murray had a fund of humor. The parsonage was close by the house of his
parishioner, the sheriff, and the adjoining jail and whipping-post in the
charge of that officer, and in the last illness of the minister the
official was in the habit of taking him to a drive. Once, as he was
getting into the chaise, a friend passed by and he called out, "If you
see any one inquiring for me, tell him the last you saw of me I was in
the hands of the sheriff." But after his time, and at the period of which
I am writing, we had no less than three English ministers settled in the
town, all educated upon the foundation of the celebrated Countess of
Huntington. I recall, with vivid recollection, the figure of one of these
worthies who called himself an "Independent," as he proceeded to meeting
on a Sunday: his high cocked hat, his flowing, black curled locks,--more
in the cavalier than the Puritan fashion; his long blue cloak over his
clerical gown, his bands, his knee-breeches,--objected to by a fastidious
young lady, as "short pantaloons,"--his square shoe-buckles, and his
ponderous cane. His person was somewhat short and thick, whence "lewd
fellows of the baser sort" sometimes irreverently called him the "The
Jack of Clubs." But he was a really good man, with the most powerful
voice I remember to have heard, and he preached, always an unwritten
sermon, but with heads set down, anything but smooth things to his
numerous congregation. Towards the close of his life he used to remark,
that when he first came to this country, the topic of sermons was "Jesus
Christ and Him crucified; now it was nothing but niggers and rum." He was
good at retort. Early one Monday morning he was goin