matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant theme sung lamentably." He
was scrupulously conscientious, devout, inclined to theological
disquisitions, and withal mighty in Scripture. He was thoroughly
independent; flattered nobody, cared for nobody, trusted nobody. When
invited to sit down at our dinner-table, be invariably took the
precaution to place his basket of valuables between his legs for safe
keeping. "Never mind thy basket, Jonathan," said my father; "we
sha'n't steal thy verses."--"I'm not sure of that," returned the
suspicious guest. "It is written, 'Trust ye not in any brother.'"

Thou too, O Parson B------, with thy pale student's brow and rubicund
nose, with thy rusty and tattered black coat overswept by white flowing
locks, with thy professional white neckcloth scrupulously preserved when
even a shirt to thy back was problematical,--art by no means to be
overlooked in the muster-roll of vagrant gentlemen possessing the entree
of our farm-house. Well do we remember with what grave and dignified
courtesy he used to step over its threshold, saluting its inmates with
the same air of gracious condescension and patronage with which in
better days he had delighted the hearts of his parishioners. Poor old
man! He had once been the admired and almost worshipped minister of the
largest church in the town where he afterwards found support in the
winter season as a pauper. He had early fallen into intemperate habits;
and at the age of threescore and ten, when I remember him, he was only
sober when he lacked the means of being otherwise. Drunk or sober,
however, he never altogether forgot the proprieties of his profession;
he was always grave, decorous, and gentlemanly; he held fast the form of
sound words, and the weakness of the flesh abated nothing of the rigor
of his stringent theology. He had been a favorite pupil of the learned
and astute Emmons, and was to the last a sturdy defender of the peculiar
dogmas of his school. The last time we saw him he was holding a meeting