"Brother McCallum and Parson Page 'd been schoolmates, so they both felt free to joke with one another; and the minute they'd shook hands, Brother McCallum begun laughin' about Parson Page goin' to the circus, and says he: 'Brother Page, I wish I'd been in your place.' Says he: 'I've always thought a man loses a heap by bein' a preacher. If anybody ought to be allowed to go to the circus,' says he, 'it looks like it ought to be us preachers, that's proof against temptation and that's strong to wrestle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Instead o' that we send the poor, weak sinners into the temptation and lead the preachers away from it.' Says he: 'I went to that very show, but I wasn't so lucky as you, for it was clear weather, and I didn't have a chance to see anything but the animals.' "And then, after sayin' all that, what did Brother McCallum do but git up the last day of Presbytery and read a paper with a lot of 'whereases' and 'be it resolveds', chargin' Brother Page with conduct unbecoming to a minister and callin' on him to explain matters. And Parson Page he had to own up to everything and explain again jest how he happened to git caught in the circus tent, and says he: 'It was a strange place for a minister of the gospel to be in, but my rule is to see what I can learn from every experience that comes to me, and I believe I learned from the circus something that, maybe, I could not learn anywhere else.' Says he: 'As I lay that night on a sleepless pillow, the Lord gave me an insight into the great mystery of predestination. I traced up the events of the day one after another. There was my betting with the showman, and I felt sorry for that. But that would not have happened if I had not sought out the showman to pay my just debt to him, and that was a right act and a right intention, yet it led me into wrong; and I saw in a flash that our own acts predestine us and foreordain us to this thing or to that. We are like children, stumbling around in the dark, taking the wrong way and doing the wrong thing, but over us all is the pity of the Father who "knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust."' "Says he: 'I went into that tent a Pharisee, and I wrapped the mantle of my pride around me and thought how much holier I was than those poor sinful show people. But,' says he, 'I talked with the showman, and I found as much honesty and kindness of heart as I ever found in any church member, and I left the show grounds with a wider charity in my heart than I'd ever felt before, for I knew that the showman was my brother, and I understood what the Apostle meant when he said: "Now are they many members; yet but one body."' "And Brother McCallum he got up, and says he: 'Well, that's more than I ever learned from any of Brother Page's sermons,' and everybody laughed, and that ended the matter so far as the Presbytery was concerned.