er side there was more lightness, more life and
hope expressed in the faces of the younger women. But in the faces of
the old there was the same outdone look of Nature facing God.

There was no service, from the standpoint of my Episcopal rearing; just
a hymn, a prayer, and then William took his text, the Beatitudes--all
of them. I have since heard better sermons on one of them, but the
figure of him standing there behind the high pulpit in the darkened
church with his eyes lifted, as if he saw angels above our heads, has
never faded from my memory, nor have the faces of the old women in
their black sunbonnets upturned to him, nor the drooping shoulders of
the old men sitting in the amen corner with bowed heads. Somehow,
there was a reality about the whole scene that we did not have at home
with all the fine music and Heaven-hinting accessories.

He had reached the promise to the blessed peacemakers in the course of
his sermon, the vision-seeing calm growing deeper in his eyes and the
high look whitening on his brow, when suddenly a woman on the front
seat stood up, laid her sleeping infant on the floor with careful
deliberation, took off her black calico bonnet, stepped into the aisle,
slapped her hands together and began to spin around and around upon her
toes with incredible celerity. Her homespun skirt ballooned about her,
the ruffle of her collar stood out like a little frill of white neck
feathers. She had a fixed, foolish expression, maintained an energy of
motion that was persistent and amazing, and gave out at regular
intervals a short, staccato squeal that was scarcely human in sound.

Not a word was spoken; William himself was silenced as he watched the
strange phenomenon. And I have often wondered since at the quality of
that courage in an otherwise shrinking country woman which could cause
her to rise, take the service out of the preacher's hands as serenely
as if she had been sent from God. And this is what she really
believed. And every other member of the congregation, including
William, shared the belief that she had got an extraordinary blessing
that day.

After all, it is a tremendous blessing to believe that one's God is
within immediate blessing distance. In this connection I venture to
add that it has always seemed to me a lack of comprehension which gives
the Methodists the chief reputation for emotional religion, and it is
certainly cheating the Episcopalians. For every time the serv