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Lord! if I had gone out to shoot a preacher, I would never have pulled trigger at you

By way of administering a sound reproof to him for being handsome, and looking well in his clothes, his superiors sent him one year--the fourth of his ministry-to a region of country where it was thought he would be broken down, or broken in. He had already seen hard service; more than once had he ridden at full speed, chased by a pack of yelling Indians, their bullets whistling round him like hail. He had become familiar with all manner of exposure and privation, but it was thought that this circuit would put him to the uttermost test. It was a wild, mountainous tract in western Virginia, sparsely populated by hunters, who were there for the game and peltry.

You may see him riding up some evening to the door of a cabin, where he is to lodge, and as it is a pretty fair specimen of the houses in the country, you may desire a description of it. The cabin is twelve by fourteen feet, and one story high. The spaces between the logs are chinked and then daubed with mud for plaster. The interior consists of one room, one end of which is occupied by a fire-place. In this one room are to sleep, the man, his wife, the fifteen or twenty children bestowed upon them by Providence for Providence is bountiful in this matter upon the border and as the woods are full of “ varmints," hens and chickens must be brought in for safe keeping, and as the dogs constitute an important portion of every hunter's family, they also take potluck with the rest. Fastened to a tree near the door is a clapboard, upon which is traced, in characters

of charcoal, a sentence to the following effect-which you may read if you are keen at deciphering hieroglyphics: "Akomidation fur man and Beast."

In this one room the family are to perform their manifold household offices. Here their sleeping, cooking, eating, washing, preaching and hearing are to be performed. Amid the driving storms of winter, it is of course impossible for our youthful theologian to transform an old log or the shadow of a tree into a study; his book must therefore be carried into the house, where he is surrounded by a motley group. Of course a hunter never swears in bad weather; the lady of the house never scolds; children of all ages never quarrel and raise a row; dogs never bark and fight; nevertheless, you may imagine that if our student is able to confine his attention to the page, deriving mental nutriment from the lettered line, he must possess not a little power of concentration and abstraction. He may obtain permission of his host to pursue his studies after the rest of the family have retired. Lighting a pine knot, he sticks it up in one corner of the huge fire-place, lays himself down on the flat of his stomach in the ashes, glowing with transport over "the thoughts that breathe and words that burn." These are what poets call "midnight oil," and "cloisters pale." Not a few men have I known who acquired a mastery of the Latin and Greek tongue, and much valuable and curious lore in such "grottoes and caves" as these.

Possibly there may be another apartment in the cabin. If so, it is denominated the "prophet's chamber." You gain access to it by a rickety step-ladder

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in one corner of the cabin. Toiling up this steep ascent you reach a loft, formed by laying loose clapboards on the rafters. With dubious tread and careful steps, you pick your way across the floor. I have said the clapboards are loose, and if you are not cautious, one end will fly up and the other down, in company with which latter you shall be precipitated upon the sleepers below. Having reached the opposite end of the loft, the prophet's bed is discovered. It is a bear-skin, a buffalo-skin, or a tick filled with shucks. Having laid him on his couch, our prophet, if he be thoughtfully inclined, can study Astronomy from his resting-place, through the rifts in the roof; and when it rains or snows, he has the benefit of the hydropathic treatment, without fee or prescription.

Many a time was the bare, bleak, mountain-side his bed, the wolves yelling a horrid chorus in his Sometimes he was fortunate enough to find a hollow log, within whose cavity he inserted his body, and found it a good protection from the rain or frost.

ears.

Sitting, one fine summer afternoon, beneath the shadow of a noble tree, intently studying his book, he heard a rustling in the branches above, then a low warning "whist" from some one near at hand, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Crashing through the branches there falls upon the ground at his feet a huge panther. The beast had been crouching in preparation for a deadly spring, when a ball from the rifle of his hunter host saved his life.

Once, seated at the puncheon dinner-table with a hunter's family, the party is startled by affrighted screams from the door-yard. Rushing out they behold a great wild cat bearing off the youngest

child. Seizing a rifle from the pegs over the door, the preacher raises it to his shoulder, casts a rapid glance along the barrel, and delivers his fire. The aim has been unerring, but too late--the child is dead, already destroyed by the fierce animal.

That same year he had a hand-to-hand fight with a bear, from which conflict he came forth victor, his knife entering the vitals of the creature just as he was about to be enfolded in the fatal hug.

He must ford or swim mountain torrents as they boil and rush along their downward channels, in cold weather as in warm. Often he emerged from the wintry stream, his garments glittering in the clear, cold sunlight, as if they had been of burnished steel-armor, chill as the touch of death. During that twelvemonth, in the midst of such scenes, he travelled on foot and horseback four thousand miles, preached four hundred times; and found on casting up the receipts, yarn socks, woollen vests, cotton shirts, and a little silver change, that his salary amounted to twelve dollars and ten cents.

Undaunted by the suspicions of his brethren, their fears that he would not make a preacher, by the hardships and perils of the way, he persevered.

One other incident of his eventful career let me relate, as he told it to me himself. He was preaching in a large country church on a bright Sabbath morning. The house was crowded to its utmost capacity, the windows were all open, one of which was immediately behind the pulpit, overlooking the rural graveyard. The preacher was indulging in a description of the various typical forms and manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Who that ever heard

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him in one of his happy moods, does not remember the enchaining power of his oratory? Spellbound, breathless, the audience hung upon his lips. It was the baptism of Jordan. With John they saw the opening heaven, the Spirit of God in the form of a dove nestling upon the Saviour, when silently, suddenly as an apparition, a milk-white dove flew through the open window at the rear of the pulpit, and nestled on the preacher's shoulder. Astounded, he paused; an instant it sat, then rose, and describing a circle around. his head, away flew the snowy bird to the vernal pas. tures and summer woods. The effect of this startling coincidence upon the audience I leave you to imagine.

I have said he persevered. He became a Doctor of Divinity, and deserved his degree, which is no faint praise in the United States. He became the President of a University, and graced the chair he filled; he became a Bishop in the Church of God; and a truer, nobler man never trod this continent than was Henry Bidleman Bascom.

These men had the wilderness for a college; their theological seminary was the circuit; and lessons enough in pastoral theology did they get. Their textbook was the Bible; for more than any others that I know of, they were men of one book. Their com mentaries and works of exegesis were their own hearts, and the hearts of their fellow-men, which they prayerfully and devoutly studied. They were "workmen that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

As we in colder mood attempt to estimate their character, it may seem as if their faith verges upon