I replied that I did not feel quite well enough acquainted with Theodora and Ellen yet, to ask such a favor; but as Halstead seemed to feel hurt that I hesitated about it, I finally promised to speak to them, although I disliked the errand. Next day was Sunday, and after breakfast we all set off, except Ellen and Gram, to go to the old meeting-house, called the "chapel," three miles distant, on a road leading westward from the farm. It was a very hilly road, and we three boys walked; but Theodora and Wealthy rode with the Old Squire in the two-seated wagon. I had been accustomed to go to church in a more handsomely furnished edifice, and the old chapel seemed, at first, very rude to me. It was a weather-beaten structure, having a high gallery across one end and an almost equally high pulpit at the other. The floor was bare, and the box-shaped pews were not many of them provided with cushions. There was a great clatter of feet when the people came in, and the roof gave back hollow echoes. The Old Squire and Gram were nominally Congregationalists, and the old meeting-house had once belonged to that sect; but becoming reduced in numbers, and being unable to support a clergyman of that denomination during the entire year, they had allowed the Methodists, and finally the Second Adventists, to hold meetings there. The Old Squire, indeed, was by no means a strict sectarian; he attended the Methodist service and sometimes, not often, the Adventist. Gram was more conservative and did not go, as a rule, except when there was a Congregationalist minister, although she always spoke well of the Methodists; and the Methodist Elder Witham (the same who took the Vermifuge) frequently visited at the farm. "All Christians are good people," Gramp was accustomed to say. "Well," Gram would reply, placidly, "I cannot help believing that we (meaning the Congregationalists) are in the right." The Old Squire's chief objection to the Adventists was, that their preachers had come into the place uninvited, and, by their zealous efforts, had caused a considerable number to withdraw from the church, thus breaking up the Congregationalist Society in that town. "I do not take it upon me to say who is right and who is wrong on these great religious questions," the old gentleman used to remark, when the subject came up. "But I disapprove of sowing the seeds of dissension in any church." However, he used sometimes to go to hear the Adventists' ministers. It was Elder Witham's turn to preach that Sunday. He was a tall, spare man, and he preached in a long linen "duster." For one I became quite a good deal interested in the sermon, for the preacher began very pleasantly by telling us several short anecdotes. Toward the close of his discourse, he became very earnest and raised his voice quite near the shouting pitch.