time their joys and their sorrows, and everything and everybody, all
through the week, and why should they stop short off Sundays? Why not
time themselves on goin' to meetin'? They do, and you know it. There
hain't no earthly need of the bells to tell the time to go to meetin',
no more than there is to tell the time to put on the tea-kettle to get
supper. If folks want to go to meetin' they will get there, bells or no
bells, and if they don't want to go, bells hain't a-goin' to get 'em
started.

"Take a man with the Sunday _World_ jest brung in, a-layin' on a lounge,
with his feet up in a chair, and kinder lazy in the first place, bells
hain't a-goin' to start him.

"And take a woman with her curl papers not took down, and a new religeus
novel in her hand, and a miliner that disapinted her the night before,
and bells hain't a-goin' to start her. No, the great bell of Moscow
won't start 'em.

[Illustration: "BELLS HAIN'T A-GOIN' TO START HIM."]

"And take a good Christian woman, a widow, for instance, who loves
church work, and has a good handsome Christian pasture, who is in
trouble, lost his wife, mebby, or sunthin' else bad, and the lack of
bells hain't a-goin' to keep that women back, no, not if there wuzn't a
bell on earth."

"Oh, wall, wavin' off that side of the subject," sez he (I had convinced
him, I know, but he wouldn't own it, for he knew well that if folks
wanted to go they always got there, bells or no bells). "But," sez he
wavin' off that side of the subject, "the observance is so time honored,