f. I have heard him say so often that he was not only ready and
willing to go, but just longing to be with Abraham."

"Honey," she replied in the tone with which a mother speaks of the
childishness of children, "them's one of the curiosities of the
Christian religion, the things persons like Billy tells in experience
meetings. I don't reckon the Lord takes the trouble to even forgive
'em, they air so foolish. I know Billy from A to Izzard, and, so far
from layin' on Abraham's bosom, he couldn't git along with him till
daybreak. He jest gits that talk out of his ambition and imagination,
although, humanly speakin', Billy is a tolerably good man, and I don't
reckon the Lord will have any cause to fling off on him when his time
comes. But you can jest set this down, nobody in his right mind feels
the way most folks say they feel in an experience meeting!"

As a matter of fact, Brother Fleming made a public thanksgiving prayer
at the altar in Redwine Church as soon as he was able to get out.

This deliverance from a woman of such beautiful integrity was a comfort
to me. For, while I endeavored to be a Christian along with William, I
have never been religious. To feel consciously religious is, in my
opinion, to become a sort of "bounder." And we all know how repulsive
a "bounder" is in any circle of society. This is the objection to the
"holiness people," they are presumptuous in professing a too intimate
likeness and relation to God. I have never seen a sanctified man or
woman yet whose putty-faced spirituality bore nearly so noble a
resemblance to Him as the sad, thunder-smitten soul of some sinner who
had had his vision of unattainable holiness. I am thankful that
William was never guilty of the temptation to call himself
"sanctified." Sanctification is a good thing to preach and a better
thing to strive after, but the minute a man professes it he becomes
less truthful and less intelligent spiritually, and he proceeds to
develop along these lessening lines.

Still, while William did not outrage my reverence for him by a too high
profession, I found him hard enough to follow. When during the first
year, Sabbath after Sabbath, I saw him quicken the spirit of his
congregation with hymns and prayers, and then, taking his text for a
motto banner, start for the outskirts of eternity, I was probably the
one person in his congregation who hung back for conscientious reasons.
I looked at the weary people in the chu