sake,
For thus the Word of Wisdom spake--
Man can't do better;
Nor can we by our labors make
The Lord our debtor!"

A quaintly characteristic correspondence in rhyme between the Deacon and
Parson McGregore, evidently "birds o' ane feather," is still in
existence. The minister, in acknowledging the epistle of his old friend,
commences his reply as follows:--

"Did e'er a cuif tak' up a quill,
Wha ne'er did aught that he did well,
To gar the muses rant and reel,
An' flaunt and swagger,
Nae doubt ye 'll say 't is that daft chiel
Old Dite McGregore!"

The reply is in the same strain, and may serve to give the reader some
idea of the old gentleman as a religious controversialist:--

"My reverend friend and kind McGregore,
Although thou ne'er was ca'd a bragger,
Thy muse I'm sure nave e'er was glegger
Thy Scottish lays
Might gar Socinians fa' or stagger,
E'en in their ways.

"When Unitarian champions dare thee,
Goliah like, and think to scare thee,
Dear Davie, fear not, they'll ne'er waur thee;
But draw thy sling,
Weel loaded frae the Gospel quarry,
An' gie 't a fling."

The last time I saw him, he was chaffering in the market-place of my
native village, swapping potatoes and onions and pumpkins for tea,
coffee, molasses, and, if the truth be told, New England rum. Threescore
years and ten, to use his own words,

"Hung o'er his back,
And bent him like a muckle pack,"

yet he still stood stoutly and sturdily in his thick shoes of cowhide,
like one accustomed to tread independently the soil of his own acres,--
his broad, honest face seamed by care and darkened by exposure to "all
the airts that blow," and his white hair flowing in patriarchal glory
beneath his felt hat. A genial, jovial, large-hearted old man, simple as
a child, and betraying, neither in look nor manner, that he was
accustomed to

"Feed on thoughts which voluntary move
Harmonious numbers."

Peace to him! A score of modern dandies and sentimentalists could ill
supply the place of this one honest man. In the ancient burial-ground of
Windham, by the side of