circulated widely, and hundreds attended.

The occasion was not without a certain touching interest. The beauty
of the day, the wildness of the scenery under the grand old trees,
with rude rocks, beautiful slopes, and running, pure water, and the
deepening tints of autumn in sky, cloud and foliage,--the warm shafts
of sunshine that here and there lit it all up,--the sincere gravity
that fell as a Sabbath hush on the expectant multitude, who seemed to
realize the presence of a solemn mystery,--carried back an imaginative
mind to an earlier day and a more primitive people, when the early
Christians, in the absence of schism, administered the same rite.

Uncle Aleck, imbued with the sweetest spirit of his Master, seemed
inspired with a sense of the sacredness of the act he was to perform.
Of its divine origin, and sweet and consecrating efficacy, he had not
the slightest doubt. The simple services of his faith he performed in
a way that harmonized entirely with the occasion and its surroundings.
A grand hymn under the old trees was sung by the choir with fine
effect; a short, fervent prayer, the reading of two or three portions
of one of the gospels, and a few words of sweet and simple fervor,
expressive of a great love and sacrifice, and the unutterable hope
and rest of its grateful acknowledgment in the public act about to be
performed, followed; and then the believing, trembling girl was led
into the translucent waters, which for a single instant closed over
her, and was returned, with a little cry of ecstasy, to her friends.
Another hymn, a simple benediction, and the solemnly impressed crowd
broke up into little knots, and left the spot vacant to the silence of
approaching night.

Conspicuous in this gathering, as conspicuous everywhere where he