to say, 'Hem! my brethren, let us pay no more taxes to sin in this
place!' There shall be no more cakes and ale. Ginger shall have no
heat i' the mouth there; and, in place of smoking meats and tobacco,
give you nothing but smoking methodism! Won't that be a sight and
a triumph which shall stir the dry bones in our valley--ay, and
bones not so dry? There shall be a quaking of the flesh in sundry
places. Flam will perish in the first fit of consternation; and if
Joe Burke's sides do not run into sop and jelly, through the mere
humor of the thing, then prophecy is out of its element quite.

"Seriously, you dog, I have become a theological student! Don't you
see proofs of my progress in my unctuous phraseology. I was taken
suddenly upon the highway--a brand plucked from the burning--and to
be stuck up on high, still lighted, however, as a sort of lantern
and lighthouse to other wayfarers--wandering rogues like yourself,
who need some better lights than your own if it only be to show you
how to sin decently. I am professedly a convert to the true faith,
though which that is, I think, has not well been determined among
you at Murkey's, or, indeed, anywhere else. I believe the vox
populi, vox Dei, still comprises the only wholesome decision which
has yet been made on the subject. The popular vote here declares it
to be methodism; with you it is baptism or presbytenanism--which?
I am a flexible student, however, and when I meet you again at
Murkey's, shall be prepared to concur with the majority.

"But, in sober fact, I am a professor--actually recognised by
my neighbors as one of the elect--set apart to be and do mighty
things. How I came so, will call for a long story, which I defer
to another occasion. Enough to tell you that an accidental rencontre
with a silly old preacher (whose gullet I filled with raw brandy,