The method of extending an invitation to "ask a blessing" before a meal is quite as peculiar. Being seated at the table, the host, turning to the preacher, says, "Will you make a beginning, sir?"--all at table reverently bowing their heads as he extends the invitation, and while the blessing is being asked. So, too, I have "made a beginning" at many a hospitable board in many different States. I did not that night make the mistake that is reported of an inexperienced home-missionary explorer, in similar circumstances, who, laboring under the impression that "to retire" and "to go to bed" were synonymous terms, said, "Madam, I will retire, if you please." "Retire!" she rejoined; "we never retires, stranger. We just goes to bed." Sitting with the family before the large fireplace, I said, "Madam, I have ridden a long distance to-day, and am very tired." "You can go to bed at any time you wish, sir," said she. "Just take the left-hand bed." I withdrew behind their backs to "lay my garments by," took the left-hand bed, turned my face to the left-hand wall, and slept soundly for the night. When I awoke in the morning, husband and wife had arisen and left the room, he to feed his team, and she to attend to her household duties in the kitchen. After an early breakfast, and again leading their family devotions, I bade them good-by, with many thanks for their kindness, and with repeated invitations on their part to be sure to spend the night with them should I ever come that way again. But I have never seen them since. I have very often recalled a hospitable reception in the Brush, of a very different character, the recollection of which has always been exceedingly pleasant to me. Wishing to visit a rough, wild, remote region, at a season of the year when the roads were almost impassable on account of the spring rains and the mud, I concluded to go the greater part of the distance by steamboats, down one river and up another, and then ride about fifty miles in a stage or mail-wagon. The roads would scarcely be called roads at all in most parts of the country, and I shall not be able to give to many of my readers any true idea of the exceeding roughness of that ride. A considerable part of the way was through the bottom-lands of one of the smaller Southwestern rivers that swell the volume of the Mississippi. A recent freshet had left the high-water mark upon the trees several feet higher than the backs of our horses; and as we jolted over the small stumps and great roots of the trees, from which the earth had been washed away by the freshet, I was wearied, exceedingly wearied, by the rough road and comfortless vehicle in which I traveled.