temporary aberration of body by visiting exclusively and diligently back
and forth among its own people, and conforming life in all particulars as
far as possible to home rules, still doing when in New York, not as the
New Yorkers but as the Joppites did, and never for a moment abandoning
its proud position as the one only place in the world worth living in.

There certainly was much to say in favor of Joppa. In the first place,
it was remarkably salubrious. Its inhabitants died only of old
age,--seldom even of that,--or of diseases contracted wholly in other
localities. Measles had indeed been known to break out there once in the
sacred person of the President of the village, but had been promptly
suppressed; besides, it was universally conceded that being in his second
childhood he should be considered liable. The last epidemic of small-pox
even had swept by them harmless. Only two old and extremely ugly women
took it, whereas Bethany and Upper Jordan were decimated. So Joppa was
decidedly healthy, for one thing. For another, it was moral. There had
not been a murder heard of in ever so long, or a forgery, and the last
midnight burglar was such a nice, simple fellow that he did not know real
silver when he saw it, and ran off with the plated ware instead. And
Joppa was not only moral, but religious; went to church no end of times
on Sundays, and kept as many of the commandments as it conveniently
could. It had four churches: one Methodist, frequented exclusively by the
plebeians; one Baptist, of a mixed congregation; one Presbyterian, where
three fourths of the best people went; and one Episcopal, which the best
quarter of the best people attended, and which among the Presbyterians
was popularly supposed to be, if not exactly the entrance to the infernal
regions, yet certainly only one short step removed from it. And added to
all these good traits, Joppa was a beautiful place. There were a few
common, ugly little houses in it, of course, but they were all tucked
away out of sight at one end, constituting what was known as "the