very warm, open, and exceedingly human disposition, and, although bred by
a clerical father, whose motto was "Sit anima mea cum Puritanis," he
exercised his human faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with
such freedom that the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere
greatly with the circulation of the warm blood through his system. Once
in a while he seemed to think it necessary to come out with a grand
doctrinal sermon, and them he would lapse away for a while into preaching
on men's duties to each other and to society, and hit hard, perhaps, at
some of the actual vices of the time and place, and insist with such
tenderness and eloquence on the great depth and breadth of true Christian
love and charity, that his oldest deacon shook his head, and wished he
had shown as much interest when he was preaching, three Sabbaths back, on
Predestination, or in his discourse against the Sabellians. But he was
sound in the faith; no doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council
held in the town of Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which
expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding
officer, he did not vote, of course, but there was no doubt that he was
all right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't
very well let him go wrong.

The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more modern
style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New England
model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to pull down its
old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a hundred years or so,
and put up one of these more elegant edifices. The new building was in
what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic manner. Its pinnacles and
crockets and other ornaments were, like the body of the building, all of
pine wood,--an admirable material, as it is very soft and easily worked,
and can be painted of any color desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed
in imitation of stone,--first a dark brown square, then two light brown