il, with streaming eyes, the
preacher tells you that "they saw it was the Lord Jesus--and _what a
pity_ it was they could not have known it before!"

It was after a sermon on this very chapter of Scripture history that
Governor Griswold, in passing out of the house, laid hold on the sleeve
of his first acquaintance: "Pray tell me," said he, "who is this
minister?"

"Why, it is old Father Morris."

"Well, he is an oddity--and a genius too, I declare!" he continued. "I
have been wondering all the morning how I could have read the Bible to
so little purpose as not to see all these particulars he has presented."

I once heard him narrate in this picturesque way the story of Lazarus.
The great bustling city of Jerusalem first rises to view, and you are
told, with great simplicity, how the Lord Jesus "used to get tired of
the noise;" and how he was "tired of preaching, again and again, to
people who would not mind a word he said;" and how, "when it came
evening, he used to go out and see his friends in Bethany." Then he told
about the house of Martha and Mary: "a little white house among the
trees," he said; "you could just see it from Jerusalem." And there the
Lord Jesus and his disciples used to go and sit in the evenings, with
Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus.

Then the narrator went on to tell how Lazarus died, describing, with
tears and a choking voice, the distress they were in, and how they sent
a message to the Lord Jesus, and he did not come, and how they wondered
and wondered; and thus on he went, winding up the interest by the
graphic _minutiae_ of an eye witness, till he woke you from the dream by
his triumphant joy at the resurrection scene.

On another occasion, as he was sitting at a tea table, unusually
supplied with cakes and sweetmeats, he found an opportunity to make a
practical allusion to the same family story. He said that Mary was quiet
and humble, sitting at her Savior's feet to hear his words; but Martha
thought more of what was to be got for tea. Martha could not find time
to listen to Christ. No; she was "'cumbered with much serving'--around
the house, frying fritters and making gingerbread."

Among his own simple people, his style of Scripture painting was
listened to with breathless interest. But it was particularly in those
rustic circles, called "conference meetings," that his whole warm soul
unfolded, and the Bible in his hands became a gallery of New England
paintings.

He particularly