this mental pas seul through which I tripped. I suspect that I was no more interested in myself, and as much interested in my parishioners, as most young clergymen. The Gospel ministry is a very poor business investment, but an excellent intellectual one. Your average pastor must take care of his own horse, dress his daughter in her rich relations' cast-off clothing, and never be able to buy the new Encyclopædia, as well at the end of twenty years as of two. But he bounds from his recitation-room into a position of unquestioned and unquestionable official authority and public importance, in two months.

No other profession offers him this advantage. To be sure, no other profession enfolds the secret, silent, tremendous struggles and triumphs, serving and crowning of the Christian minister, a struggle and service which no patent business motive can touch at arm's length; a triumph and crown which it is impossible to estimate by the tests of the bar, the bench, the lecture-room. But as it is perfectly well known that this magazine is never read on Sundays, and that the introduction of any but "week-day holiness" into it would be the ruin of it, I refrain from pursuing my subject in any of its finer, inner lights, such as you can bear, you know, after church, very comfortably; and have only to bespeak your patience for my delay in introducing you to

The Parish Real.

I arrived there on Saturday night, at the end of the day, a ten miles' stage-ride, and a final patch of crooked railway, in a snow-storm. Somebody who lectures has somewhere described the unique sensations of hunting in a railway station for a "committee" who never saw you, and whom you never saw. He should tell you how I found Mr. Dobbin, for I am sure I cannot. found myself landed in a snow-drift I suppose there was a platform under it, but I never got so far with three other women. The three women had on waterproofs; I had on a water

I

proof. There were four men and a half, as nearly as I could judge, in slouched hats, to be seen in or about the little crazy station. One man, one of the whole ones, was a ticketed official of some kind; the other two were lounging against the station walls, making a spittoon of my snow-drift; the half-man was standing with his hands in his pockets.

"Was you lookin' for anybody in partikkelar?" said one of the waterproofs, thoughtfully, or curiously, as I stood dismally regarding the prospect. "Thank you. Yes. Can you tell

me if Mr. Do-"

"obbins," said the half-man at this juncture, "Bangs?" "Yes, sir."

"New parson?" "Yes, sir."

"That's the talk!" said Mr. Dobbins. "Step right round here, ma'am !"

"Right round here," brought us up against an old buggy sleigh, and an old horse with patient ears. "Hold on a spell," said Mr. Dobbins, "I'll put ye in."

Now Mr. Dobbins was not, as I have intimated, a large man. Whether he were actually a dwarf, or whether he only got so far and stopped, I never satisfactorily discovered. But at all events, I could have "put" Mr. Dobbins into anything twice as comfortably as I could support the reversal of the process; to say nothing of the fact that the ascent of a sleigh is not at most a superhuman undertaking. However, not wishing to wound his feelings, I submitted to the situation, and Mr. Dobbins handed me in and tucked me up, with consummate gallantry. I mention this circumstance, not because I was prepared for, or expected, or demanded, in my ministerial capacity, any peculiar deference to my sex, but because it is indicative of the treatment which, throughout my ministerial experience, I received.

"Comfortable?" asked Mr. Dobbins after a pause, as we turned our faces eastward, towards a lonely landscape of billowy gray and white, and in

you'd been a man - minister now, I don't s'pose I should have dared to undertake the keep of you, with mumps in the house; but it's so different with a woman; she's got so much more fellow-feeling for babies; I thought you would n't mind!" I confess that my heart dropped "deeper than did ever plummet sound." For about ten minutes I would rather have been in Hercules making calls than in New Vealshire preaching the Gospel.

I was aroused from this brief state of despair, however, by the remembrance of my now near-approaching professional duties; and after a hot breakfast (of salt-pork and barley bread), I retired to my icy room to prepare my mind appropriately for my morning's dis

course.

The storm had bent and broken since early dawn. The sun and the snow winked blindly at each other. The great hills lifted haughty heads out of wraps of ermine and gold. Outlines in black and gray of awful fissures and caverns gaped through the mass of wealthy color which they held. Little shy, soft clouds fled over these, frightened, one thought; now and then a row of ragged black teeth snapped them up; I could see them struggle and sink. Which was the more relentless, the beauty or the power of the sight, it were difficult choosing. But I, preparing to preach my first sermon, and feeling in myself (I hope) the stillness and smallness of the very valley of humiliation, did not try to choose. I could only stand at my window and softly say, "Before the mountains were brought forth, THOU art.”

over there. It ought to make one very good, I think, to live in the face of such hills as those."

"I want to know!" said Mary Ann, coming and gaping over my shoulder. "Why, I get as used to 'em as I do to washing-day!

I had decided upon extempore preaching as best adapted to the needs of my probable audience, and, with my icy hands in the warm "shaving-water" and my eyes on the icy hills, was doing some rambling thinking about the Lord's messages and messengers, -a subject which the color and dazzle and delight of the morning had touched highly to my fancy; but wondering, through my slicing of introduction, firstly, secondly, a, b, c, d, and conclusion, if the rural tenement in which we should worship possessed a dinnerbell, or a gong, or anything of that sort, which could be used as summons to assemble, and if it were not quite time to hear the sound, when Mary Ann introduced herself upon the scene again, to signify that Mr. Dobbins awaited my pleasure down stairs. Somewhat confused by this sudden announcement, I seized my Bible and my hat, and presented myself promptly but palpitating. "Morning," said Mr. Dobbins, with a pleasant smile. "Rested yet?"

I thanked him, and was quite rested. "You don't!" said Mr. Dobbins. "Wal, you see I come over to say that meetin' 's gin up for to-day." "Given up!" "Wal, yes. Ye see there's such a heft of snow, and no paths broke, and seein' it was a gal as was goin' to preach, me and the other deacon we thought she'd get her feet wet, or suthin', and so we 'greed we would n't ring the bell! Thought ye'd be glad to be let off, after travellin' all day yesterday, too!"

I looked at Mr. Dobbins. Mr. Dobbins looked at me. There was a pause.

2

"Will your paths be broken out by night?" I asked, with a terrible effort at self-control.

"Wal, yes. In spots; yes; middlin'

!

Will my audience be afraid of wetting their feet, after the paths are broken?"

"Bless you, no!" said Mr. Dobbins, staring, "they're used to 't."

"Then you will please to appoint an evening service, and ring your bell at half past six precisely. I shall be there, and shall preach, if there is no one but the sexton to hear me. And next Sabbath you will oblige me by proceeding with the regular services, whatever the weather, without the least anxiety for my feet."

"If you was n't a minister, I should say you was spunky," said Mr. Dobbins, thoughtfully. He regarded me for some moments with disturbed interest, blindly suspicious that somebody was offended, but whether pastor or parishioner he could not make out. He was still undecided, when he took to his hat, and I to my 66 own sweet thoughts."

This incident vitally affected my programme for the day. It was harrowing, but it was stimulative. There was the inspiration of the rack about it. The animus of the stake was upon me. I could die, but I would not surrender. I would gain the respect of my parishioners, whether well, yes whether I gained their souls or not; I am not ashamed to say it now, partly because of the true, single, gnawing hunger for usefulness for usefulness' sake, and for higher than usefulness' sake, which came to me afterwards, and which, you remember, is all left out for the Sunday magazines; partly because the acquisition of my people's respect was a necessary antecedent to that of their salvation.

So by help of a fire which I cajoled from Samphiry, and the shaving-water which was warmer than the fire, I contrived to employ the remainder of the Sabbath in putting my first sermon upon

paper.

The bell rang, as I had directed, at half past six. It did not occur to me at the time that it sounded less like a dinner-gong than a church-bell of average size and respectability. I and my

sermon were both quite ready for it, and I tramped off bravely (in my rubber boots), with Mary Ann as my guide, through the drifted and drifting paths. Once more, for the benefit of my sex, I may be permitted to mention that I wore a very plain street suit of black, no crimps, a white collar of linen, and a black tie; and that I retained my outside garment a loose sack — in the pulpit.

"Here we are," said Mary Ann, as I floundered up half blinded from the depths of a three-feet drift. Here we were indeed. If Mary Ann had not been with me I should have sat down in the drift, and no, I do not think I should have cried, but I should have gasped a little. Why I should have been horribly unprepared for the sight of a commodious white church, with a steeple, and a belfry and stone steps, and people going up the steps in the latest frill and the stove-pipe hat, the reader who has ever tried to patronize an American seamstress, or give orders to an American servant, or ask an American mechanic if he sees a newspaper, must explain. The citizens of Storm might be heathen, but they were Yankees ; what more could be said? Sentence a Yankee into the Desert of Sahara for life, and out of the "sandwiches there" he would contrive means to live like "other folks."

However, I did not sit down in the drift, but went on, with meeting-house and worshippers all in an unnatural light like stereoscopic figures, and sat down in the pulpit; a course of conduct which had at least one advantage, it saved me a cold.

Mr. Dobbins, it should be noted, met me at the church door, and conducted me, with much respect, up the pulpit stairs. When he left me, I removed my hat and intrenched my beating heart behind a hymn-book.

It will be understood that, while I was not unpractised in Sabbath-school teaching, mission prayer-meeting exhortation, "remarks" at sewing-schools, and other like avenues of religious influence, of the kind considered suitable

for my sex, I had never engaged in anything which could be denominated public speech; and that, when the clear clang of the bell hushed suddenly, and the pause on the faces of my audience -there may have been forty of them -warned me that my hour had come, I was in no wise more ready to meet it than any Miss A, B, or C, who would be content to employ life in making sofa-pillows, but would be quite safe from putting it to the outré purpose of making sermons.

So I got through my introductory exercises with a grim desperation, and made haste to my sermon. Once with the manuscript in my hands, I drew breath. Once having looked my audience fairly in the eye, I was prepared to conquer or be conquered by it. There should be no half-way work between us. So I held up my head and did my best.

The criticism of that sermon would be, I suspect, a choice morning's work for any professor of homiletics in the country. Its divisions were numerous and startling; its introduction occurred just where I thought it would sound best, and its conclusion was adjusted to the clock. I reasoned of righteousness and judgment to come, in learned phrase. Theology and metaphysics, exegesis and zoology, poetry and botany, were impressed liberally into its pages. I quoted Sir William Hamilton, Strauss, Aristotle, in liberal allowance. I toyed with the names of Schleiermacher and Copernicus. I played battledoor and shuttlecock with "views" of Hegel and Hobbes. As nearly as I can recollect, that sermon was a hash of literature in five syllables, with a seasoning of astronomy and Adam.

I had the satisfaction of knowing, when I read as modestly, reverently, and as much like an unanointed churchmember as I knew how, a biblical benediction, and sat down again on the pulpit cushions, that if I had not preached the Gospel, I had at least subdued the church-going population of Storm.

-

Certain rough-looking fellows, upon whom I had had my eye since they came in, there were several of them, grimy and glum, with keen eyes; men who read Tom Paine, you would say, and had come in "to see the fun," while I must admit that they neither wept nor prayed, left the house in a respectful, stupid way that was encouraging.

"You gin it to us!" said Mr. Dobbins, enthusiastically. "Folks is all upsot about ye. That there was an eloquent discourse, marm. Why, they don't see but ye know jest as much as if ye was n't a woman!"

And when I touched Mary Ann upon the shoulder to bring her home, I found her sitting motionless, not quite strangled stiff. She had made such a cavern of her mouth, during my impassioned peroration, that an irreligious boy somewhere within good aim had snapped an India-rubber ball into it, which had unfortunately stuck.

Before night, I had reason to feel assured from many sources that I had "made a hit" in my corner of New Vealshire. But before night I had locked myself into the cool and dark, and said, as was said of the Charge of the Six Hundred: "It is magnificent; but it is not war!"

But this is where the Sunday part of my story comes in again, so it is of no consequence to us. Suffice it to say that I immediately appointed a little prayermeeting, very much after the manner of the ideal service, for the following Wednesday night, in the school-house, with a little table, and a tallow candle, too. The night was clear, and the room packed. The men who read Tom Paine were there. There were some old people present who lived out of walking distance of the church. There were a few young mothers with very quiet children. I succeeded in partially ventilating the room, and chanced on a couple of familiar hymns. It needed only a quiet voice to fill and command the quiet place. I felt very much like a woman, quite enough like a lady, a little, I hope, like a Christian too.