re I was pastor, to preach to the miners. It was
our second year in California, and the paternal element in his nature
fell on us like a benediction. He preached three noble sermons to full
houses in the little church on the red hillside, but his best discourses
were spoken to the young preacher in the tiny parsonage. Catching the
fire of the old polemics that led to the battles of the giants in the
West, he went over the points of difference between the Arminiau and
Calvinistic schools of theology in a way that left a permanent deposit
in a mind which was just then in its most receptive state. We felt very
lonesome after he had left. It was like a touch of home to have him with
us then, and in his presence we have had the feeling ever since. What a
home will heaven be where all such men will be gathered in one company!

It was a warm day when he went down to take the stage for Mariposa. The
vehicle seemed to be already full of passengers, mostly Mexicans and
Chinamen. When the portly Bishop presented himself, and essayed to
enter, there were frowns and expressions of dissatisfaction.

"Mucho malo!" exclaimed a dark-skinned Senorita, with flashing black
eyes.

"Make room in there--he's got to go," ordered the bluff stage-driver,
in a peremptory tone.

There were already eight passengers inside, and the top of the coach was
covered as thick as robins on a sumac-bush. The Bishop mounted the step
and surveyed the situation. The seat assigned him was between two
Mexican women, and as he sunk into the apparently insufficient space
there was a look of consternation in their faces--and I was not
surprised at it. But scrouging in, the newcomer smiled, and addressed
first one and then another of his fellow-passengers with so much
friendly pleasantness of manner that the frowns cleared away from their
faces, even the stolid, phlegmatic Chinamen brightening up with the
contagious good humor of the "big Mellican man." When the driver cracked
his whip, and the spirited mustangs struck off in the California gallop
--the early Californians scorned any slower gait--everybody was
smiling. Staging in California in those days was often an exciting
business. There were "opposition" lines on most of the thoroughfares,
and the driving was furious and reckless in the extreme. Accidents were
strangely seldom when we consider the rate of speed, the nature of the
roads, and the quantity of bad whisky consumed by most of the drivers.
Many of