"That's not so, Brother," came a voice from the farther end of the car, and I turned to see this valiant champion of ours. Had I been asked to give the place of his nativity, I should have put it in that Middle West of ours, which takes from her children all surplus flesh and puts in its place bone and sinew. His complexion was sallow, and the general expression of his face betokened sensitiveness, bordering on the abnormal. "I have been in America twenty years, and those years in Chicago, and I have met many good men. The good men don't shoot and drink and gamble." It seemed strange language to my travelling companions; but to me it sounded familiar. After the Chicago man had delivered his exordium, I had no difficulty in getting his story from him, and then I knew "whence this man had this doctrine." Emigrating in his young manhood to Chicago, he had come in touch with Methodist missionaries, who befriended him and saved him from a life of intemperance and infidelity. Unfortunately, his awakened, religion-hungry soul became confused by the shibboleths of contending sects; he travelled and travailed all the way, from striving after a "Second Blessing," to "Soul Sleepers," "Seventh Day Adventists," and Dowie's religious movement, which at times looked like Opera Bouffe, but which ended in a great tragedy. I did not discover what form of faith was now holding the allegiance of his spirit; but as he told me that it was neither a church nor a sect, I surmised that he belonged to some church or sect whose chief doctrine is that it is neither. Evidently the Spirit was upon him, some spirit at least; for he told me that he had been sent to Hungary to convert his brethren. Knowing how much the region from which he came needed some moral and religious quickening, I timidly offered him my hand and my good wishes; but he declined both. He "must not lean on the arm of flesh; so the Bible says." The odour of tobacco offended his sensitive nostrils, and, turning to the butter and egg man, who was the chief offender, he pointed to his pipe, saying: "Throw that devilish thing away!" But a Slav and his pipe are not so soon parted, and the butter and egg man held firmly to his; although he smiled, not wishing to offend this prophet in Israel. Then the luckless man pulled his whiskey bottle out of his pocket and offered it to the ex-Dowieite, who took it, lifted it high in air, and made an eloquent temperance address, after which he threw the bottle out the window. If, as a drowning man, he had refused a life-preserver, or had thrown diamonds into the sea, his Slavic brothers would not have thought him more reckless or insane. Palenka, as they call it, gives strength. Black bread and palenka have kept the hard-working Slav alive, have given him courage and cheer, and this crazy man had thrown the precious stuff away!