"Yes; and we are just going after the rest of the traps up at the shanty, and I called to see whether you would give me the little clock for a keepsake?" "Oh, yes." Away she went as happy as a lark. Less than two years from the time she was left a widow, a rich old uncle found in her his long-lost niece, and the woman became heiress to thousands of dollars. Sometimes dreadful scenes are witnessed at funerals where strong drink has suddenly finished the career of father or mother. At the funeral of a little child smothered by a drunken father, the mother was too sick to be up at the funeral, the father too drunk to realize what was taking place, and twice the service was stopped by drunken men. At another funeral a dog-fight began under the coffin. The missionary kicked the dogs out, and resumed as well as he could. At another wretched home the woman was found dying, the husband drunk, no food, mercury ten degrees below zero, and the little children nearly perishing with cold. The drunken man pulled the bed from under his dying wife while he went to sleep. His awakening was terrible, and the house crowded at the funeral with morbid hearers. In one town visited, a county town at that, the roughs had buried a man alive, leaving his head above ground, and then preached a mock funeral sermon, remarking as they left him, "How natural he looks!" As the nearest minister is miles away, the missionary has to travel many miles in all weathers to the dying and dead. Visiting the sick, and sitting up with those with dangerous diseases, soon cause the worst of men not only to respect but to love the missionary; and no man has the moulding of a community so much in his hands as the courageous and faithful servant of Christ. The first missionary on the field leaves his stamp indelibly fixed on the new village. Towns left without the gospel for years are the hardest of all places in which to get a footing. Some towns have been without service of any kind for years, and some of the young men and women have never seen a minister. There are townships to-day, even in New York State, without a church; and, strange as it may seem, there are more churchless communities in Illinois than in any other State in the Union. Until two years ago Black Rock, with a population of five thousand, had no church or Sunday-school. Meanwhile such is the condition of the Home Missionary Society's treasury that they often cannot take the students who offer themselves, and the churchless places increase. All kinds of people crowd to the front,--those who are stranded, those who are trying to hide from justice, men speculating. Gambling dens are open day and night, Sundays of course included, the men running them being relieved as regularly as guards in the army.