forest, made a harmonious picture. Atone side lay a graveyard; birds
sang in the surrounding trees, some of which reached out their giant
arms and touched the log walls. Swallows had built nests under the
eaves outside, and some on the rough projections inside, and joined
their twitter to the songs of other birds and the rich organ
accompaniment of wind and trees.

There were two sermons, and in the intermission, a church sociable, in
fact if not in name. Friends who lived twenty miles apart, met here,
exchanged greetings and news, gave notices and invitations, and obeyed
the higher law of kindness under protest of their Calvinistic
consciences. In this breathing-time we ate our lunch, went to the
nearest house and had a drink from the spring which ran through the
stone milk-house. It was a day full of sight-seeing and of solemn, grand
impressions.

Of the two sermons I remember but one, and this from the text "Many are
called but few are chosen," and the comments were Calvinism of the most
rigid school. On our way home, my brother William--three years older
than I--was very silent and thoughtful for some time, then spoke of the
sermon, of which I entirely approved, but he stoutly declared that he
did not believe it; did not believe God called people to come to him
while he did not choose to have them come. It would not be fair, indeed,
he thought it would be mean.

That evening, when we were saying the shorter catechism, the question,
"What are the decrees of God?" came to me, and after repeating the
answer, I asked father to explain it--not that I needed any explanation,
but that William might be enlightened; for I was anxious about his soul,
on account of his skepticism. Enlightened he could not be, and even to