By this time Theron's sermons, preached under that stony glare of
people to whom he owed money, had degenerated to a pitiful level of
commonplace. As a consequence, the attendance became once more
confined to the insufficient membership of the church, and the trustees
complained of grievously diminished receipts. When the Wares, grown
desperate, ventured upon the experiment of trading outside the bounds of
the congregation, the trustees complained again, this time peremptorily.

Thus the second year dragged itself miserably to an end. Nor was
relief possible, because the Presiding Elder knew something of the
circumstances, and felt it his duty to send Theron back for a third
year, to pay his debts, and drain the cup of disciplinary medicine to
its dregs.

The worst has been told. Beginning in utter blackness, this third year,
in the second month, brought a change as welcome as it was unlooked for.
An elderly and important citizen of Tyre, by name Abram Beekman, whom
Theron knew slightly, and had on occasions seen sitting in one of
the back pews near the door, called one morning at the parsonage, and
electrified its inhabitants by expressing a desire to wipe off all their
old scores for them, and give them a fresh start in life. As he put the
suggestion, they could find no excuse for rejecting it. He had watched
them, and heard a good deal about them, and took a fatherly sort of
interest in them. He did not deprecate their regarding the aid he
proffered them in the nature of a loan, but they were to make themselves
perfectly easy about it, and never return it at all unless they could
spare it sometime with entire convenience, and felt that they wanted to
do so. As this amazing windfall finally took shape, it enabled the Wares
to live respectably through the year, and to leave Tyre with something