lively missionary from the region of the Quoddy Indians, with much
hopeful talk about Sock Bason and his tribe; also poor old
Poor-house-Parson Isaac Smith, his head going like a China mandarin, as
he discussed the possibilities of the escape of that distinguished
captive whom he spoke of under the name, if I can reproduce phonetically
its vibrating nasalities of "General Mmbongaparty,"--a name suggestive to
my young imagination of a dangerous, loose-jointed skeleton, threatening
us all like the armed figure of Death in my little New England Primer.

I have mentioned only the names of those whose images come up pleasantly
before me, and I do not mean to say anything which any descendant might
not read smilingly. But there were some of the black-coated gentry whose
aspect was not so agreeable to me. It is very curious to me to look back
on my early likes and dislikes, and see how as a child I was attracted or
repelled by such and such ministers, a good deal, as I found out long
afterwards, according to their theological beliefs. On the whole, I
think the old-fashioned New England divine softening down into
Arminianism was about as agreeable as any of them. And here I may
remark, that a mellowing rigorist is always a much pleasanter object to
contemplate than a tightening liberal, as a cold day warming up to 32
Fahrenheit is much more agreeable than a warm one chilling down to the
same temperature. The least pleasing change is that kind of mental
hemiplegia which now and then attacks the rational side of a man at about
the same period of life when one side of the body is liable to be
palsied, and in fact is, very probably, the same thing as palsy, in
another form. The worst of it is that the subjects of it never seem to
suspect that they are intellectual invalids, stammerers and cripples at
best, but are all the time hitting out at their old friends with the well
arm, and calling them hard names out of their twisted mouths.