Geo. A. Smith.--Rev. C.N. Stowers.--In the Shade.



Thirty Years in the Itinerancy.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

Providential Intervention.--Nature and Providence alike Mysterious.--An
Unseen Hand shaping Human Events.--The Author urged to enter the
Ministry.--Shrinks from the Responsibility.--Flies to Modern
Tarshish.--Heads for Iowa.--Gets Stuck in the Mud.--Smitten by a
Northern Gale.--Turns Aside to see the Eldorado.--Finds Himself Face to
Face with the Itinerancy.

The ways of Providence are mysterious. And how, to men, could they be
otherwise? With their limited faculties it could not be expected that
they would be able to obtain more than partial glimpses of the "goings
forth of the Almighty." The Astronomer can determine the orbit of the
planets that belong to our system, since they lie within the range of
his vision; but not so the comets. These strange visitors locate their
habitations mainly in regions so remote from the plane of human
existence that his eye cannot reach them. And when they do condescend to
pay us a visit, they traverse so wide a circuit that the curve they
describe is too slight to furnish a basis for reliable mathematical
calculations. Hence the orbit of a comet is a mystery, and the return
not unfrequently a surprise. If this be true of what seem to be the
unfinished or exploded worlds, that swing like airy nothings in the