Elder Leland, tall and courtly, was well adapted to the dramatic part of the occasion. A grander commoner never entered the Republican court. Jefferson had often met the great revival preacher in Virginia, for Leland depopulated towns to listen to his fiery eloquence wherever he went. His calling to the ministry, like Saint Paul’s, had come, as he believed, in the form of a voice out of the skies, and his tongue, to use the old Hebrew simile common in the old days, had been “touched by a burning coal from the altar.” There are few preachers like Leland to-day. Eloquent as the old Methodist field preachers, elegant and courtly as a Camille Desmoulins, witty as a Swift or Steele, and far in advance of his times in the liberality of his opinions, a theological disciple of Roger Williams and Samson Mason, and a political follower of Jefferson, he was not only a remarkable preacher, but one of the most noted men of his time. He labored as a winter revivalist in Virginia for many years, before he made his home in Cheshire. It was one of the humors of the time to relate events of a pleasing character in the style of the Hebrew Chronicles, and the Chronicle of the Cheshire Cheese was once well-known in the story-telling town. It began:— “And Jacknips said unto the Cheshirites, ‘Behold, the Lord hath put a ruler over us that is after our own hearts. Now let us gather together our curds, and carry them into the valley of Elisha, unto his wine-press, and there make a great cheese, that we may make a thank-offering unto the great man.’ Now this saying pleased the Cheshirites, so they did as Jacknips had commanded.” The great Cheshire Cheese was shared by the President with the governors of several States, to whom samples were sent. The story of it was a great advertisement of Berkshire County; and it was resolved to make a still larger cheese, which should weigh sixteen hundred pounds. [Illustration: SPANISH BUILDING.] Elder Leland’s church was famous for its psalmody. He himself wrote many hymns, among them the almost Ambrosian tone-picture,— “The day is past and gone.” He used sometimes to ascend the pulpit singing. There was one of the numerous Brown family of Cheshire who was a famous singer in his day, and to him we will assign a popular story of the time. His voice not only filled the church, but went out of the window. His bass notes were deep and full,—“foot-notes,” he called them,—and it was his special pride to inform the people in the then masterpiece of country-church choir music how “The angel of The angel of The Lord came down. And glory shone around, And glory And g-l-o-r-y, etc.”