"You had a sad business here the last week, sir," he said, after we had
done talking about the repairs.

"A very sad business indeed," I answered.

"It was a warning to us all," he said.

"We may well take it so," I returned. "But it seems to me that we are too
ready to think of such remarkable things only by themselves, instead of
being roused by them to regard everything, common and uncommon, as ordered
by the same care and wisdom."

"One of our local preachers made a grand use of it."

I made no reply. He resumed.

"They tell me you took no notice of it last Sunday, sir."

"I made no immediate allusion to it, certainly. But I preached under the
influence of it. And I thought it better that those who could reflect on
the matter should be thus led to think for themselves than that they should
be subjected to the reception of my thoughts and feelings about it; for in
the main it is life and not death that we have to preach."

"I don't quite understand you, sir. But then you don't care much for
preaching in your church."

"I confess," I answered, "that there has been much indifference on that
point. I could, however, mention to you many and grand exceptions. Still
there is, even in some of the best in the church, a great amount of