But that was not the strangest part of the ceremony. The father and mother stood behind the witnesses, the latter being two men and two women. The women held the children until all was ready, then handed them to the men, who held them during baptism. I preached to them a short sermon of five minutes or so, and then, when I had written the certificate, each witness deposited a dollar on the table. The father was about to hand me five dollars; but I made him give four of it to the children. They would not take a cent of the witness money; that would be "bad luck," they said. It was a new experience to me. The people had no Bible in the house. As I had left mine at the village, I had to use what I had in my heart. Here again, I thought, what work for a colporteur? A great work might be done by one or two men who could travel all the time with Bibles and other good books, and preach where the opportunity offered. We might not see the result, but it would be just as certain; and though the people might not stay here, they will be somewhere. There are many places where neither railway, steamboat, nor stage ever reaches, and yet the people have made and are making homes there. They went up the rivers on rafts, and worked their way through the wilderness piecemeal. Missionary Thurston carried his parlor stove slung on a pole between himself and another man. At one place, while preaching, I noticed a man fairly glaring at me. At first I thought he was an intensely earnest Christian, but he "had a devil." After meeting he told the people, "If that man talks like that to-night, I'll answer him right out in meeting." He came, and behaved himself. Some time after he had to leave town on account of a stabbing-affray, and I lost sight of him for a while. Long after I was in another place, one hundred and twenty miles away; and while talking with our missionary there, I saw a man coming from a choir-practice. I said, "Is that their minister?" "No; he is our new school-teacher." "Why," I said, "that is the very man I was talking to you about, who was so wroth with the sermon." "Oh, no! you are mistaken; he is a very pious young man--opens school with prayer, and attends all our meetings; and I know it is not put on to please the trustees, for they are not that kind of men." But it _was_ the same man, minus the devil, "for behold he prayeth." At another place I preached in a little log schoolhouse. Close to my side sat a man who would have made a character for Dickens. He had large, black, earnest eyes, face very pale, was deformed, and, with a little tin ear-trumpet at his ear, he listened intently. I was invited by his mother to dine with them. I found, living in a little house roofed with bark, the mother and two sons. One of the boys was superintendent of the Sunday-school. I was surprised at the first question put by my man with the ear-trumpet,--