“Brethren, during the past few days my eyes have been opened, and what I have seen hasn’t been pleasant to look upon. It is indeed true, my dear friends, that Satan sometimes appears as an angel of light. For months I’ve been feeling, and real happily, too, what a glorious thing it was to do good; I had been instrumental in saving one man from destruction by keeping him busy, and I’d helped save another”--here the deacon paused suddenly and looked around to make sure that Judge Macdonald was not in the room--“I’d helped save another by taking an interest in the mill. But within a few days I’ve learned that my own righteousness was as filthy rags; ’twas even worse than that, brethren, for the worst rags are worth so much a pound, but I can’t find that my righteousness is worth anything at all. I’ve fought it out with myself, brethren, an’ I believe I’ve conquered; but it makes my heart sick to see what my enemy looks like, an’ to think I’ve got to carry him around with me through the rest of my days. Doin’ good’s all right, even if it _does_ pay in dollars and cents, brethren; but doin’ good for the sake of what it’ll bring is the quickest way of makin’ a hypocrite that I ever found, an’ I’m beginnin’ to think that I’ve found a good many ways in myself, my friends. I ask an interest in the prayers of God’s people, an’ I assure ’em that there’s no danger of any of their prayers bein’ wasted.” The deacon dropped into his seat, and the silence that prevailed for a moment was simply inevitable in a little company that had never before heard such an extraordinary confession; as one of the members afterward remarked, it sounded like a murderer’s last dying speech. Then good Parson Wedgewell sprang to his feet, and, with streaming eyes and rapid utterances, offered a prayer such as had never been heard in that room before. The songs and prayers which followed were not those to which the meeting were accustomed, and when at last the assemblage separated, there could not be heard from the home-wending couples any critiques of the language or garb of any one who had been present. As for Deacon Jones, he continued his new fight most valiantly by visiting Tom Adams that very evening, and assuring him that, their supplementary agreement to the contrary notwithstanding, he would continue Tom’s pay during his confinement, and would pay his doctor’s bill also. CHAPTER XVI. A REFORMER DISAPPOINTED.