Methodists in other places. We stick by the Discipline an' the ways of
our fathers in Israel. No new-fangled notions can go down here. Your
wife'd better take them flowers out of her bunnit afore next Sunday."

Silence possessed the room for a few moments, the while Theron,
pale-faced and with brows knit, studied the pattern of the ingrain
carpet. Then he lifted his head, and nodded it in assent. "Yes,"
he said; "we will do nothing by which our 'brother stumbleth, or is
offended, or is made weak.'"

Brother Pierce's parchment face showed no sign of surprise or pleasure
at this easy submission. "Another thing: We don't want no book-learnin'
or dictionary words in our pulpit," he went on coldly. "Some folks may
stomach 'em; we won't. Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down
in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're
too flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned
Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell me
there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out--where our
ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to
hear about it. Such preachers ought to be put out. They ain't Methodists
at all. What we want here, sir, is straight-out, flat-footed hell--the
burnin' lake o' fire an' brim-stone. Pour it into 'em, hot an' strong.
We can't have too much of it. Work in them awful deathbeds of Voltaire
an' Tom Paine, with the Devil right there in the room, reachin' for
'em, an' they yellin' for fright; that's what fills the anxious seat an'
brings in souls hand over fist."

Theron's tongue dallied for an instant with the temptation to comment
upon these old-wife fables, which were so dear to the rural religious
heart when he and I were boys. But it seemed wiser to only nod again,