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better. It ain't decent, the way Walker makes himself prominent in the
church, nohow. They say he killed a man in Virginia before he came
here. I might as well tell you, for you are bound to hear it anyhow.
My sons say they are going to pull out and go to the Presbyterian
church if Walker don't quit carryin' on so about the organ. Their
father was Presbyterian, and I wouldn't be surprised if it cropped out
in them. But it'll be bad for our church if they do. They pay half of
the preacher's salary, and Walker scarcely pays at all. Seems to me he
ought to keep his mouth shut. And Richard Brown has took the homestead
law to keep from paying his debts. Now maybe he'll drop behind in his
subscription, too. He was a right smart help in the church, though I
never thought much of him morally. They say he drinks and cusses both
when he goes off to Augusta. And it's a plumb shame that his wife's
president of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. She's all right
now, I reckon, but folks 'talked' about her when she was a girl." She
paused to get her second wind, folded her hands as if in prayer, turned
her divine old eyes up to the ceiling and continued:

"But the Epworth League is the worst. I've always had my doubts about
it. 'T won't do to git too many young folks together in a bunch. I
don't care how religious they are, they'll just bust up and turn
natural if you git too many of 'em together. That's what's happened
here. The Epworth League kept on flourishin' so, we didn't understand
it. It met every Saturday night as prayerful and punctual as clocks.
But as soon as the old folks left they shet the doors, and then they'd
dance like sin--been doing it for months before anybody found out. Oh!
I'll tell you everything is on the downward road in this church, and
your husband is going to have his hands full even if he don't starve to
death!"

Every preacher's wife is the victim of such women. If she is
supernaturally wise she does not handicap her husband by repeating
their gossip to him. Personally, I prayed more earnestly to be
delivered from this particular temptation than from any other. But
never once was the Lord able to do it. Sooner or later I invariably
told William every word of scandal I heard.

He never served but one church where the people in it did not "talk"
about one another. I will call the place Celestial Bells, although
that is not the real name of it.

The congregation was a s