ming's
torch had gone out--a tall man arose from near the middle of the
congregation. He had a bushy brown beard, a little apostrophe nose,
childish china-blue eyes, and a thin high voice which gave the
impression upon hearing it that he was at the very moment trying hard
to squeeze through the eye of his needle, spiritually speaking. I
recognized him as Brother John Henry, distinguished for having the most
sensitive conscience of any man in the church. Now he stood with the
tears in his eyes, too deeply moved for a moment to speak. Everyone
leaned forward, for it was always a matter of interest to know what
else was troubling Brother Henry's soul. At last, in a quavering
treble he confessed with the air of one doomed to suffer terrible
disappointment.

"Brother Thompson, you know, all of you know, I try to be a good man.
But the flesh is weak. I git tempted and fall into sin before I know
it. I'm sufferin' remorse now beca'se I set my old dominique hen twice
and cheated her into hatchin' two broods of chickens without givin' her
a day's rest between settin's! My remorse is worse beca'se a man can't
apologize to a hen or make restitution!"

Such rarefied confessions were common, and this was one of many
occasions when I disgraced William by snickering in the solemn pause
which followed.

However, these faded daguerreotypes of memory suggest but faintly any
idea of the people with whom I began my life as a minister's wife. I
can only show their narrowness. I am not able to give the shrill high
notes of faith in their lives. They made an awful business of being
good. And the contrast between them and the witty, mind-bred,
spirit-lost people of the world was startling indeed, but more to their
credit than some are accustomed to think.

CHAPTER IV

WILLIAM AS A LEADER OF FORLORN HOPE

For spiritual beings we do take with singular heartiness to the soil
and spoils of this present world. The hope of immortality is more a
fear than a hope with many of us. We do not like to see the open door
of death that leads to it. So every good preacher is the shepherd of
our misgivings, the leader of our forlornest hopes, the captain more
particularly of men and women who are about to die, or who are seeking
Heaven at last in a state of earthly disappointment and world
exhaustion. I have rarely known a person in good health morally and
physically, fortunately situated in life, who voluntarily sought the
conso