stated--fond of preachers, it was manifestly because they looked upon a
preacher as a very superior sort of person, and not because of his
gospel message.

For when Mrs. Lachlan hospitably brewed a cup of tea and Thompson took
the opportunity of making his customary prayer before food an appeal
for divine essence to be showered upon these poor sinful creatures of
earth, the Lachlan family rose from its several knees with an air of
some embarrassing matter well past. And they hastened to converse
volubly upon the weather and the mosquitoes and Sam Carr's garden and a
new canoe that Lachlan's boys were building, and such homely interests.
As to church and service they were utterly dumb, patently unable to
follow Thompson's drift when he spoke of those things. If they had souls
that required salvation they were blissfully unconscious of the fact.

But they urged him to come again, when he rose to leave. They seemed to
regard him as a very great man, whose presence among them was an honor,
even if his purposes were but dimly apprehended.

The three walked back across the meadow, Breyette and MacDonald
chattering lightly, Thompson rather preoccupied. It was turning out so
different from what he had fondly imagined it would be. He had envisaged
a mode of living and a manner of people, a fertile field for his labors,
which he began to perceive resentfully could never have existed save in
his imagination. He had been full of the impression, and the advice and
information bestowed upon him by the Board of Missions had served to
heighten the impression, that in Lone Moose he would fill a crying want.
And he was not so obtuse as to fail of perceiving that no want of him or
his message existed. It was discouraging to know that he must strive
mightily to awaken a sense of need before he could begin to fulfill his