The next meeting of the Scripture Club of Valley Rest was impatiently looked forward to by all the club members. Although there were at that time plenty of political theories to quarrel over, two or three fine projects for new lines of lake navigation, and at least a dozen for making of the neighboring city the greatest Western rival to New York, conversation on these subjects was only fitful on the boats which carried the business men of Valley Rest between their homes and the city. Before the second Sunday of the existence of the class, each member had in mind at least one religious topic upon which he wanted full, exhaustive, and decisive discussion; he also in his innermost heart, and sometimes on his lips, had the settled conviction that he was just the man to speak the decisive word, and thus readjust human thought to the newly-discovered requirements of eternal truth. Nor was excitement on religious topics confined to the members of the club. Not a day of the week passed without bringing to Deacon Bates a new candidate for admission. First came Mr. Hopper, who took enthusiastic delight in whatever was new, whether in religion, politics, medical theories, or popular smoking tobaccos. As Mr. Hopper was a rich man, good Deacon Bates hastily assured him that the class would be delighted to have him as a member, and Mr. Hopper graciously responded by offering to read at the very first meeting a seventeen-page paper, from a very heavy but comparatively new quarterly, on "The True Location of the Holy Sepulchre." Then came Mr. Jodderel, who had once defrayed the entire cost of producing a bulky pamphlet, the motive of which was the probable final settlement of all departed spirits, in renewed bodies, on some one of the terrestrial globes which he believed had been in preparation from the foundation of the world. Mr. Jodderel more than hinted that he would like to see considerable attention given to this topic in the new class, and though good Leader Bates trembled at the thought, having heard the same subject discussed in season and out of season ever since Mr. Jodderel had made the coming peerless city of the West his place of business, he was true to the sentiment which had led to the formation of the class, and therefore gave Mr. Jodderel a hearty fraternal welcome. Then, like Nicodemus, there came by night, and from fear of the orthodox, Brother Prymm, to whom the slightest letter of the law was of more importance than the whole of the spirit thereof. He had made the matter of joining the class a subject of special prayer, he said, and had made up his mind that if it were really the intention of the members to encourage free speech and honestly search for the actual truth regarding the will of God, it was his duty to join the class, and serve his blessed Master to the extent of his poor abilities. Mr. Maddle came next, and Leader Bates' heart gladdened to receive him, for Mr.