THE OLD PASTOR.


On the following morning Mr. Penrose set out to call on the old
pastor at the house of Dr. Hale, conjuring up as he went pictures
of the man whom he knew only by report, and, as he deemed,
exaggerated report too. To Rehoboth people Mr. Morell was a
prodigy--a veritable prophet of the Most High; and his successor's
sojourn was not a little embittered by the disparaging contrasts
so frequently drawn between the old order and the new. To be for
ever told the texts from which Mr. Morell used to preach, to hear
in almost every house some pet saying or scrap of philosophy wont
to fall from his lips, to be asked, if not bidden, by the deacons
to tread in the footprints of one who was believed to wear the
seven-league boots, became intolerable; and had not discretion
guarded the speech of Mr. Penrose, many a time his language of
retort would have been strange to covenanted lips. Often, too, he
asked himself what manner of man he must be who nursed and reared
this narrow sect of the hills--a sect setting judgment before
mercy, and law before love--a sect narrowing salvation to units,
and drawing the limit line of grace around a fragment of mankind.

On his arrival at Dr. Hale's, however, a surprise greeted him, and
as he responded to the old pastor's outstretched hand, he knew he
met with one in whom firm gentleness and affable dignity were the
chief charm of character. There was not, as he anticipated,
coarse, crass assertiveness--a semi-cultured man whose narrow
creed joined hands with barren intelligence. Far otherwise; he
stood before one whose presence commanded reverence, one at whose
feet he felt he must bow.