We often hear of "the drink curse" in these places, and it is not exaggerated; but there is one crime in these new towns of the north that to my mind is worse, and a greater barrier to the conversion of men and women. It is licentiousness. One little place not far from where I was preaching boasts of not having a single family in it that is not living openly in this sin. Although this is the worst I ever heard of, it is too true that our woods towns are thus honeycombed. About the only hope the missionary has in many cases is in the children, even though he begins, as did one pastor that I know of, with two besides his own. He started his school in a deserted log shanty where it grew to be forty strong, and in spite of obstacles it grew. It was hard work sometimes, when the instinct of the boy would show itself in the pleasures of insect hunting with a pin along the log seats. Yet there the missionary's wife sat and taught. They soon had a nice church, paid for within the year. I did not expect to find within six miles of a large city such a state of things as existed in Peter Cartwright's time in Michigan, but I did; and lest I should be called unfair, I will say I found there a few of the excellent of the earth. Let me describe the meeting-place. It was in an old hall, the floor humped up in the middle; there was an old cook-stove to warm it, while a few lanterns hung among faded pine boughs gave out a dim light. A few seats without backs completed the furniture. Here it was that a good brother, while preaching, had the front and rear wheels of his buggy changed, making rough riding over roads none too smooth at their best. Another from the Y. M. C. A. rooms of the neighboring city had his buffalo robes stolen and every buckle of the harness undone while he was conducting services. Knowing these things, I was not surprised at finding a rough old Roman Catholic Irishman trying to make a disturbance; but a kind word or two won him over to good behavior. Much less tractable were the young roughs, who reap all the vices of the city near by, and get none of its virtues. I had to tell them of the rough places I had seen, and that this was the first place I had been where the young men did not know enough to behave themselves in church. Promising without fail to arrest the first one that made a disturbance, I secured quiet. Of course I had to make friends with them afterwards and shake hands. Oh, how hard it is to preach the gospel after talking law in that fashion; but, friends, think how much it is needed. As a little bit of bright for so black a setting, let me say, that on the second night some kind friends substituted a box-stove for the cook-stove, lamps for lanterns, and an organ to help in the praise. XIII. COCKLE, CHESS, AND WHEAT.