in the exercises. Brother Jethro Sims, a hoary-headed patriarch, was walking slowly up and down the main aisle, clapping his hands and singing with a look of ecstasy in his upturned eyes which a sophisticated religionist might vainly wonder at, finding that his superior attainments and advanced theories had bereft him of the power to even comprehend such faith, such piously prescient joys. The ground was covered with a deep layer of straw, deadening the stir among the rows of benches. Many of these, having no backs, served to acquaint their occupants with martyrdom and to offer a premium to the naturally upright. There were numbers of little children present, for as yet the lenient rule of the mountain churches tolerates their babble and even their crying in reason. Here and there one of the humbly clad young women, with her sleeping infant in her arms, the yellow light falling upon its head and on her solemn, listening, almost holy face, might remind one of another peasant mother whose Child is the hope of the world. The extreme seriousness, the devout aspiration, the sublimity of the unquestioning faith, that animated the meeting, could annul ignorance, poverty, uncouthness. There were many canine figures on the outskirts of the crowd, now and then peering with wolfish green eyes and weird effect from the darkness among the laurel, which was beginning to sway and sound with the wind. Those in the full light, standing even beneath the roof and, with lolling tongue and wagging tail, looking upon the proceedings, seemed peculiarly idle here and to incur the imputation of loafers, despite that they are never very busy elsewhere. Others were more selfishly employed, creeping about under the benches and among the feet of the congregation, searching in the straw for the bits of bread and meat thrown aside by the frequenters of the meeting who did not camp on the grounds, but brought their lunch for the midday, and went home at night. One little dapper yellow dog had bounded on the end of the mourners’ bench, and sat there, gravely gazing about him with small, affable eyes, all unnoticed by the elders, but threatening the gravity of an urchin, who grinned and coughed to hide the grin, breaking out with a wild, uncontrollable vocalization, relic of the whooping-cough, not long over-past. He was finally motioned out of the tabernacle, and scudded across in the rain to the shanty, while the little dog sat demure and unmolested on the mourners’ bench. Larger sinners were gathering there presently, albeit slowly. “Come! come!” cried the old man sonorously over the singing. “Delay not! My brethren, I hev never seen a meetin’ whar the devil held sech a strong hold! Come! Hell yawns fur ye! Come! Yer time is short! Grace beckons! Come! The fires o’ perdition air kindled! The flames air red!”