I say, it is impossible to write of such a preacher and such people as if they were characters in an electric religious fancy. Walking to and from church here in this city I have almost wondered if they were ever real. Thinking of them sets me to recalling stanzas from Watts's hymns. I smell the thyme upon their hills. It seems as if my adjectives were beginning to grow like flowers upon William's grave. I can see the candles lit for evening services in Heaven, and him sitting in the amen corner away from the flashing-winged, fashionable saints, comparing notes with Moses and Elijah in his deep organ undertones. The trouble with William was that he was the hero of another world in this one, handcuffed by a Church Discipline. And the trouble with the average New York preacher is that he is barely a foreigner in this world, who is apologizing continually to his congregation for half-way believing in his own other country. But now I have finished this poor drawing of William's character. If I could have made it enough like him it might have been fit for one of the family portraits of the saints in Heaven. And I have often wondered why the monument builders have never thought to raise a statue to the Methodist circuit rider. The D. A. R.'s and the other daughters of this and that raise monuments to men who were only brave, but no one has thought yet to erect a statue to the memory of the Methodist circuit riders, who are not less brave, but who have doubtless broken some Heaven records in simple goodness and self-sacrifice. CHAPTER XVIII CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES ABOUT THE CHURCH I had thought that these letters were finished, but I am adding this postscript to say that I leave New York to-morrow for the little house between the hills on the Redwine Circuit. This resolution is not in keeping with some views and sentiments I have written in these pages, but, being a woman, I thank God I can be as inconsistent as is necessary to feminine peace of mind. I reckon I'll never be satisfied now in the world or in the church without William. I can't seem to settle into any state of being of my own. I am not saying that I have not had a good time here, but, after all, I do not belong with the people of the world, either.