obstinate recusant might have been represented as unfit to judge on
such a question,--in fact, as being _non compos mentis_,--and the
petition would have been taken as representing the feeling of the men.
But this could not be done: Bunce's friends were as firm as himself,
and as yet only six crosses adorned the document. It was the more
provoking, as Bunce himself could write his name legibly, and one of
those three doubting souls had for years boasted of like power, and
possessed, indeed, a Bible, in which he was proud to show his name
written by himself some thirty years ago--"Job Skulpit;" but it was
thought that Job Skulpit, having forgotten his scholarship, on that
account recoiled from the petition, and that the other doubters would
follow as he led them. A petition signed by half the hospital would
have but a poor effect.

It was in Skulpit's room that the petition was now lying, waiting such
additional signatures as Abel Handy, by his eloquence, could obtain
for it. The six marks it bore were duly attested, thus:


his his his
Abel X Handy, Gregy X Moody, Mathew X Spriggs,
mark mark mark


&c., and places were duly designated in pencil for those brethren who
were now expected to join: for Skulpit alone was left a spot on which
his genuine signature might be written in fair clerk-like style.
Handy had brought in the document, and spread it out on the small deal
table, and was now standing by it persuasive and eager. Moody had
followed with an inkhorn, carefully left behind by Finney; and Spriggs