er, and can not well afford to provide for an established place of
worship and a regular pastor, their labors, valued at the lowest
standard of human want, are inappreciable. We may add that never did
laborers more deserve, yet less frequently receive, their hire, than the
preachers of this particular faith. Humble in habit, moderate in desire,
indefatigable in well-doing, pure in practice and intention, without
pretence or ostentation of any kind, they have gone freely and
fearlessly into places the most remote and perilous, with an empty
scrip, but with hearts filled to overflowing with love of God and
good-will to men--preaching their doctrines with a simple and an
unstudied eloquence, meetly characteristic of, and well adapted to, the
old groves, deep primitive forests, and rudely-barren wilds, in which it
is their wont most commonly to give it utterance: day after day, week
after week, and month after month, finding them wayfarers still--never
slumbering, never reposing from the toil they have engaged in, until
they have fallen, almost literally, into the narrow grave by the
wayside; their resting-places unprotected by any other mausoleum or
shelter than those trees which have witnessed their devotions; their
names and worth unmarked by any inscription; their memories, however,
closely treasured up and carefully noted among human affections, and
within the bosoms of those for whom their labors have been taken; while
their reward, with a high ambition cherished well in their lives, is
found only in that better abode where they are promised a cessation from
their labors, but where their good works still follow them. This,
without exaggeration, applicable to the profession at large, was
particularly due to the individual member in question; and among the
somewhat savage and always wild people whom he exhorted, Parson Witter
was in many cases an object of sincere affection, and in all commanded
their respect.

As might readily be expected, the whole village and as much of the
surrounding country as could well be apprized of the affair were for the
gathering; and Colleton, now scarcely feeling his late injuries, an
early breakfast having been discussed, mounted his horse, and, under the
guidance of his quondam friend Forrester, took the meandering path, or,
as they phrase it in those parts, the old _trace_, to the place of
meeting and prayer.

The sight is something goodly, as well to the man of the world as to the
ma