tize above the rest those plague-spots which
revealed themselves to mortals? "Fearful above all others," he was wont
to say, "will be those sins which, being kept cautiously smouldering
through life, will, at the blast of the Archangel's trump, blaze out in
inextinguishable fire!"

The Doctor kept himself and his pulpit mostly free of that theological
fermentation which in those years was going on throughout New
England,--at least of all such forms of it as marked a division in the
orthodox churches. If he had a leaning, it was certainly in favor of the
utmost severity of Calvinism. He distrusted human philosophy, and would
rather have accepted the theory of natural inability in all its
harshness than see it explained away by any metaphysic subtilties that
should seem to veil or place in doubt the paramount efficiency of the
Spirit.

But though slow to accept theological reforms, the Doctor was not slow
to advocate those which promised good influence upon public morals. Thus
he had entered with zeal into the Temperance movement; and after 1830,
or 1832 at the latest, there was no private locker in the parsonage for
any black bottle of choice Santa Cruz. His example had its bearing upon
others of the parish; and whether by dint of the Doctor's effective
preaching, or whether it were by reason of the dilapidated state of the
buildings and the leaky condition of the stills, it is certain that
about this time Deacon Simmons, of whom casual mention has been made,
abandoned his distillery, and invested such spare capital as he chose to
keep afloat in the business of his son-in-law, Mr. Bowrigg of New York,
who had up to this time sold the Deacon's gin upon commission.

Mr. Bowrigg was a thriving merchant, and continued his wholesale traffic
with eminent success. In proof of this success, he astonished the good
people of Ashfield by building, in the summer of 1833, at the
instigation of his wife, an elegant country residence upon the main
street of the town; and the following year, the little Bowriggs--two
daughters of blooming girl age--brought such a flutter of city ribbons
and silks into the main aisle of the meeting-house as had not been seen
in many a day. Anne and Sophia Bowrigg, aged respectively thirteen and
fifteen, fell naturally into somewhat intimate associations with our
little friends, Adele and Rose: an association that was not much to the
taste of the Doctor, who feared that under it Adele might launch again