black, grim-looking man entered; his dress, the
cut of his hair, and his whole appearance, strongly recalled the
idea of one of Cromwell's fanatics. He stepped solemnly into the
middle of the room, and took a chair that stood there, but not to
sit upon it; he turned the back towards him, on which he placed
his hands, and stoutly uttering a sound between a hem and a
cough, he deposited freely on either side of him a considerable
portion of masticated tobacco. He then began to preach. His
text was "Live in hope," and he continued to expound it for two
hours in a drawling, nasal tone, with no other respite than what
he allowed himself for expectoration. If I say that he repeated
the words of this text a hundred times, I think I shall not
exceed the truth, for that allows more than a minute for each
repetition, and in fact the whole discourse was made up of it.
The various tones in which he uttered it might have served as a
lesson on emphasis; as a question--in accents of triumph--in
accents of despair--of pity--of threatening--of authority--of
doubt--of hope--of faith. Having exhausted every imaginable
variety of tone, he abruptly said, "Let us pray," and twisting
his chair round, knelt before it. Every one knelt before the
seat they had occupied, and listened for another half hour to a
rant of miserable, low, familiar jargon, that he presumed to
improvise to his Maker as a prayer. In this, however, the
cottage apostle only followed the example set by every preacher
throughout the Union, excepting those of the Episcopalian and
Catholic congregations; THEY only do not deem themselves
privileged to address the Deity in strains of crude and unweighed
importunity. These ranters may sometimes be very much in
earnest, but surely the least we can say of it is, that they

"Praise their God amiss."

I enquired afterwards of a friend, well acquainted with such
matters, how the grim preacher of "Hope" got paid for his
labours, and he told me that the trade was an excellent one, for
that many a gude wife bestowed more than a tithe of what her gude
man trusted to her keeping, in rewarding the zeal of these self-
chosen apostles. These sable ministers walk from house to house,
or if the distance be considerable, ride on a comfortable ambling
nag. They are not only as empty as wind, but resemble it in
other particulars; for they blow where they list, and no man
knoweth whence they come, nor whither they go. When they s