SUPPER AT DEACON WILLETT'S

a powerful spiritual awakening, such as I have never been able to bring about at The Forks."

"The Forks," it may be remarked, was the popular name for the little hamlet, situated in central New York, where the Rev. Joseph Shore at present resided, as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church there. The official postal title of the place was seldom mentioned or even thought of by the people living thereabouts.

"Yes," said Aunt Sue, "folks turns out to meetin' here's spry 's they do to picnics 'n' donations 'n' school ex'bitions in mos' deestric's. But 'tain't all in the folks, by a long shot. Ther's many on 'em comes to meetin' reg'ler now, an' what's o' more 'ccount, behaves theirsel'es better'n they did up to two year ago. Bad 'nough they'll feel when Mr. Shore's three years is up, an' glad 'nough they'll be ef he's ever sent back here ag'in.'

Aunt Sue never "brothered" anybody.

"My labors here have indeed been not only pleasant, but, by God's grace, in some measure successful, I trust," replied Mr. Shore, but with no touch of boasting in voice or manner; "and it will be with much regret that I shall leave the warm-hearted brethren and sisters. But I doubt not my successor will be found worthy all the good will and loyal support these good people have accorded their present pastor."

Well, we ain't anxious to try it, I tell ye," replied Aunt Sue, repressing her inclination to ask Mr. Shore whether his regret at leaving was not in some degree tempered by a hope that the matter of ministerial bread and butter would get more attention from the people of his next charge. She well knew, indeed, that, as the experience of country preachers went, he had small ground for hope.

How long has the revival been going on?" asked Mr. Gurley.

'A leetle more'n a month now," replied the Deacon. "It begun 'bout the fust o' Feb'uary, later'n usual. The weather'd b'en so bad 'n' it'd kep' snowin' 'n' blowin' 'n' driftin' so it delayed things some'at. But the meetin's hez b'en runnin stiddy sence they did begin. Brother Granger don't stop fer nothin' when he once gits started." "Have many accepted the invitation to Christ?" inquired Mr. Gurley.

"Yes, lots on 'em," responded the Deacon. "The

anxious seat's b'en crowdid ever night sence the fust week." "Mr. Granger kin give ye the 'xac' figgers o' them thet's b'en converted, an' them thet's only laberin' under conviction yit, 's well 's the backsliders thet's b'en reclaimed," added Aunt Sue, with an undevotional twinkle of the eye. "And where does Sugar Hill get its peculiar name?" pursued Mr. Gurley.

This question roused the Deacon as no revival discussion was ever known to.

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'O, the name comes from Brother Willett's big sugarbush, that splendid grove of maples back of the schoolhouse," answered Mr. Shore. "If there's anything you don't know about making maple sugar, Brother Willett can tell you."

So saying, Mr. Shore left the Deacon to ride his hobby. If there was one thing in which he took more pride than in anything else about his well-kept farm, it was the sugarbush.

"I dew make a powerful sight o' sugar 'n' m'lassiz,” said the Deacon, "an' ther' ain't nobody makes no better sugar in the hull State o' New York, ner down East nuther, 'f I dew say it. An' 's nigh's I kin hear, mine's 'bout the bigges' bush anywheres roun' these parts; an' it's the purtyis' an' evenis' growth o' trees ye ever sot eyes on."

The more the Deacon thought and talked about it the more animated he grew. But if the Rev. Jason Gurley felt at all bored, the fact apparently had no effect to diminish his appetite. It was not often that he sat down at such a table.

Meantime Aunt Sue and Mr. Shore entered upon an exchange of news items about things and folks at The Forks and on Sugar Hill; not common "quiltin'-bee" gossip but sensible talk about sensible topics

The two young Willetts, Hezekiah junior and Stephen, aged respectively ten and eight years, were so overawed by the presence of the strange minister that they chewed their food in smacky silence, scarcely taking their eyes off the great man, except occasionally to ask ma in a stage whisper to replenish their plates. Also Sally Stomer, the fifteenyear-old orphan girl whom Aunt Sue had several years before "tuk to bring up" and had treated like a daughter, sat very still at Aunt Sue's left hand, except when sent to refill the teapot or to pile up the bread plate with half a dozen

more slices of the toothsome “salt-raisin'" bread. Such quiet on the part of the young folks was not maintained when Mr. Shore was the only guest. On the contrary, his coming meant everywhere freedom and fun for the 'young'uns." He loved children-he had five of his own -and encouraged them to romp and laugh; and it was his remark on the occasion of his first supper at Deacon Willett's that" children should be both seen and heard" which won Aunt Sue; because, she said, "it showed he hed some human natur' lef', an' wa'n't one o' them preachers 't seemed to think laughin' was a sin, an' thet they mus' allus go roun' lookin' 's solemn 's a gravestone."

The Rev. Jason Gurley, when he first visited Sugar Hill, on the first Sunday in March, 1862, was one of the few survivors of a group of Methodist preachers who, in addition to their religious propaganda, filled a place neither small nor unimportant in the social and political life of central, southern, and western New York during the first half of the present century. Like his co-laborers in that field, Jason Gurley believed implicitly in the doctrine of an overruling Providence, and in the constant intervention of a personal God and a personal Devil in the affairs of men. He recognized the intelligent interference of God or Satan in every phenomenon that varied in the minutest particular from the dull routine of daily happenings. Personal intercourse

with God was as real to him as his intercourse with the people around him; and the Devil's efforts to draw him away from God or to balk him in his work of saving souls, were as clear to him as the physical obstacles he met on his rugged journeys or the occasional attempts of young bullies to break up his meetings. His hair and beard were now tinged with gray. His weather-beaten visage, his expression of iron determination, his forcible, authoritative, dogmatic manner, and his rough, unclerical garb were all characteristic of the body of men of which, thirty years before, he had been one of the younger members. He now stood as one of the connecting links between the old order and the new. He had formerly been assigned to regular circuit work. Later he had taken to wandering over the country on horseback as a revivalist. He preached wherever he found hearers, and ate and slept wherever hunger and night overtook him.

JASON GURLEY AND JOSEPH SHORE

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One of his most notable traits as a preacher-a_trait not uncommon among the preachers of his earlier daywas his bitterness toward all denominations but his own, and his especial hatred of Calvinism and Universalism; and which of the two he hated worse, or why, he couldn't have told.

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The Rev. Joseph Shore was a man of different type, both in temperament and in his relations with the people among whom he worked. He belonged to the new corps of Methodist preachers now succeeding the generation of circuit riders to which Mr. Gurley belonged, doing a work very similar, but living more settled and domestic lives and having closer personal acquaintance and connection with the people to whom they preached; although in many of his personal characteristics, both as a man and as a preacher, Mr. Shore differed quite as much from his contemporaries in the ministry as from his predecessors. migration and natural increase of population had now made it possible for even outlying communities, with perhaps rare exceptions, to be brought within some charge having a settled pastor who preached to them at stated, even if long, intervals. Mr. Shore preached Sunday mornings at the church at The Forks. Sunday afternoons and evenings, as well as on one or more evenings during the week, he held religious services at schoolhouses far and near within his charge. It might be five or six weeks between successive sermons at the same place; yet he looked closely after all these small communities within his clerical domain, in many of which, as in the Sugar Hill district, regular services were held, with preaching, as well as class- and prayer-meetings, by exhorters capable of keeping up the flow of the religious

current.

Mr. Shore was of warmly sympathetic nature and of cheery, breezy voice and manner, a little bombastic in speech, but full of healthy animal spirits; one of those people whose very presence acts as a stimulus and tonic to more sluggish natures. The only gospel he could find in the Bible at any rate, all that he could find it in his heart to preach-was a gospel of love and joy and helpfulness. When he mentioned hell it was but incidentally, never as the chief motive for seeking religion. He read in the Bible that God loved all men, and so he saw no reason why he should not love them too, whether they loved God or not.

If there were harsh, forbidding things in his religion, the humanity in his nature was too strong and too well developed to be greatly warped by them, and his human feelings too warm and active to be thus cooled or stifled. Loving all men, he was a man among men, and was beloved by all men. Christians pointed to him as an example of what Christianity could do for a man. Uncle Elath Dent, a positive and avowed disbeliever, saw in him an illustration of what a man could be in spite of his church creed, and a proof that

A man kin be a mighty good man while perfessin' what ain't true, jes' 's he kin be a mighty mean man while perfessin' what is true; an' ye can't tell by the way a man lives nothin' 'bout whuther what he perfesses is true er false."

But to return to the Sunday evening supper at Deacon Willett's. Both ministers were hungry after their rough four-mile ride from The Forks. Mr. Shore had stopped at Deacon Willett's, as he usually did, for several reasons: because it was the dwelling nearest the schoolhouse, because he was sure of as hearty a welcome there as anywhere, because he liked the Deacon well and Aunt Sue better, and possibly though the evidence on this point is not conclusive-because Aunt Sue had the reputation of being the best cook for miles around and the Deacon a similarly wide fame as a "good pervider." Aunt Sue saw with satisfaction that Mr. Gurley paid her supper the only compliment she cared for, by "eatin' 's ef the victuals tasted good, an' not mincin' an' mussin' over 'em." She always knew her food was good, and the last thing she would have thought of doing was to fish for flattery by making disparaging or apologetic remarks about her table.

Toward the end of the meal the conversation became general again, and of course led to an exchange of news and views about the Civil War then waging. The ministers hesitated not to avow not merely their loyalty to the Union but their earnest hope that the war would result in the abolition of slavery. Aunt Sue was equally outspoken in her devotion to the flag. The Deacon had less to say, and said it more mildly; not merely because he was characteristically mild and moderate, but because he was a Democrat and differed somewhat with his enthusiastically Republican wife and neighbors as to the proper conduct of the war.