I almost stumbled over a man as I hurried out by the gate. "I beg thy pardon, friend," I said. "I beg yours, sir," he answered. I looked, and saw that he was a hireling minister with a white cloth at his neck and an unhappily-cut coat. And he raised his hand to his hat and said, "I am but new in this neighborhood: I am the pastor of the church newly erected here." "Peace be unto thee, man of the Lord!" I said. "And to you, my friend!" he answered. And I had but time to reach the station and take my place in the car that whirled me away from where my mind was so constantly set. II. It was but natural and wholly consistent that I should choose an unassuming and grave lodging-house on my arrival at the place of my destination; for, apart from my predilection of religious tenets, quietude is closely allied to much thought; and while my training had made me desire the quietude as a part and portion of the best of life, friend Barbara had made thought inexpressibly pleasant and wholesome to me. There were men all around me who had, perhaps, little or no thought of religion--that is, the emotion of religion, which is so often confounded with religion itself--yet when I made known my wishes of a quiet home to them they assisted me without the usual looking askance at my plain garb and manner of speech. Was I not a man like themselves? were not my functions as their own? Take away what each of us looked upon as faults in the other, and we were equals and alike. I made my request boldly: had I minced the matter and felt a shame in it, I might have merited all the ridicule which men morally and physically strong, or men morally and physically diseased, usually throw upon a conscious weakness which would pass for something else. I was recommended to many houses, only they all had the great drawback--many other lodgers. At last some one proposed Jane Afton's house: that was quiet enough, they assured me, but the greatest objection to any paled when in comparison with this: she had a demented woman in charge--harmless, but wholly astray from sense. "I assure thee," I said to friend Afton, "I fear not the minds of people: the body does the harm in this world." "In that case you have come to the right house," said she. "For Fanny Jordan is a little, slight woman without strength, and her insanity is from religion." And so on my first day in the place I found my lodging-house. It might have been more conciliating to my mind had friend Afton not attempted the use of the plain language, for she made but a sorry attempt at it at best.