read it every day, and believe every word you read; and the third is, you are to curse the Methodists in every crowd you get into." The preacher looked on during these novel propositions, without a line of his face being moved, and at the end replied that the terms were unreasonable, and he would not submit to them. "Well, you have got a whaling to submit to then. I'll larrup you like blazes! I'll tear you into doll-rags corner-ways! Get down, you bugger!"

The preacher remonstrated, and Forgeron walked up to the horse and threatened to tear him off if he did not dismount, whereupon the worthy man made a virtue of necessity and alighted. "I have but one request to make, my friend, that is, that you won't beat me with this overcoat on. It was a present from the ladies of my last circuit, and I do not wish to have it torn."

"Off with it, and that suddenly, you basin-faced imp, you." The Methodist preacher slowly drew off his overcoat, as the blacksmith continued his tirade of abuse on himself and his sect, and as he drew his right hand from the sleeve, and threw the garment behind him, he dealt Mr. Forgeron a tremendous blow between the eyes, which laid that person at full length on the ground, with the testament of Thomas Paine beside him. The Rev. Mr. Stubbleworth, with the tact of a connoisseur in such matters, did not wait for his adversary to rise, but mounted him, with the quickness of a cat, and as he bestowed his blows with a bounteous hand on the stomach and face of the blacksmith, continued his song where he had left off on his arrival at the smithy

Tongue can not express the sweet comfort and peace
Of a soul in its earliest love-

until Mr. Forgeron, from having experienced "first love," or some other sensation equally new to him, responded lustily, "Nough! 'Nough! Take him off!" But unfortunately there was no one by to perform that kind office except the old roan, and he munched a bunch of grass and looked on as quietly as if his master was "happy" at a camp-meeting.

"Now," said Mr. Stubbleworth, "there are three things you must promise me, before I let you up."

"What are they?" asked Forgeron, eagerly.

"The first is, that you will never molest a Methodist

preacher again.'

Here Ned's pride rose and he hesitated, and the reverend gentleman, with his usual benign smile on his face, renewed his blows, and song

I rode on the sky, freely justified I,

And the moon it was under my feet.

This oriental language overcame the blacksmith. bold figures, or something else, caused him to sing out: "Well, I'll do it-I'll do it!"

Such

"You are going on very well," said Mr. Stubbleworth. "I think I can make a decent man of you yet, and perhaps a Christian." Ned groaned. "The second thing I require of you is to go to Pumpkinvine Creek meeting house, and hear me preach to-morrow."

Ned attempted to stammer out some excuse--"I—I—that is—” when the divine resumed his devotional hymn, and kept time with the music, by striking him over the face with the fleshy part of the hand

My soul mounted higher on a chariot of fire,

Nor did envy Elijah his seat.

Ned's promise of punctuality caused the parson's exercise to cease, and the woods redolent of gorgeous imagery, died away in echoes from the adjacent crags.

"Now, the third and last demand I make of you is peremptory." Ned was all attention to know what was to come next. "You are to promise to seek religion day and night, and never rest until you obtain it at the hands of a merciful Redeemer."

The fallen man looked at the declining sun and then at the parson, and knew not what to say, when the latter individual began to raise his voice in song once more, and Ned knew what would come next. "I'll do my best," he said, in an humbled voice.

"Well, that's a man," Mr. Stubbleworth said. "Now get up and go down to the branch and wash your face, and dust your clothes, and tear up Mr. Paine's testament, and turn your thoughts on high."

Ned arose with feelings he had never experienced before and went to obey the lavatory injunction of the preacher, when that gentleman mounted his horse, took Ned by the hand, and said: "Keep your promises and I'll keep your counsel-good evening, Mr. Forgeron; I'll look for you to

morrow"; and off he rode, with the same imperturbable countenance, singing so loud as to scare the eaglets from their eyrie in the overhanging rocks.

Well," thought Ned, "this is a nice business! What would people say if they knew Edward Forgeron was whip't before his own door in the gap, and by a Methodist preacher, too!" But his musings were more in sorrow than in anger.

The disfigured countenance of Forgeron was, of course, the subject of numerous questions that night among his friends, to which he replied with a stern look they well understood, and the vague remark that he had met with an accident. Of course they never dreamed of the true cause. Forgeron looked in the glass, and perhaps compared the changing hues of his "black eye from a recent scuffle" to the rainbow in the shipwreck scene--"blending every color into one.' Or perhaps he had never read that story and only muttered to himself, "Ned Forgeron whipped by a Methodist preacher.'

His dreams that night were of a confused and disagreeable nature, and waking in the morning, he had an indistinct memory of something unpleasant having occurred. At first he could not recollect the cause of his feelings; but the bruises on his face and body soon called it to mind, as well as the promise. He mounted his horse in silence and went to redeem it.

From that time his whole conduct manifested a change of feeling. The gossips of the neighborhood observed it, and whispered that Ned was silent and serious, and had gone to meeting every Sunday since the accident. They wondered at his burning the books he used to read so much. Strange stories were circulated as to this metamorphose of the jovial dare-devil blacksmith into a gloomy and taciturn man. Some supposed, very sagely, that a "spirit" had enticed him into the mountains, and after giving him a glimpse into the future, had led him to a crag, where he had fallen and bruised his face. Others gave the prince of darkness the credit of the change, but none suspected the Methodist preacher; and as the latter gentleman had no vanity to gratify, the secret remained with Ned.

This gloomy state of mind continued until Forgeron visited a camp-meeting. The Rev. Mr. Stubbleworth preached

a sermon that seemed to enter his soul and relieve it of a burden, and the song of "How happy are they who their Saviour obey" was only half through when he felt like a new man. Forgeron was from that time a shouting Methodist. At a love feast a short time subsequent, he gave in his experience, and revealed the mystery of his conviction and conversion to his astonished neighbors. The Rev. Simon Stubbleworth, who had faithfully kept the secret until that time, could contain himself no longer, but gave vent to his feelings in convulsive peals of laughter, as the burning tears of heartfelt joy coursed their way down his cheeks.

"Yes, my brethren," he said, "it's all a fact. I did maul the grace into his unbelieving soul, there's no doubt."

The blacksmith of the mountain pass became a happy man and a Methodist preacher.

THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY
By HENRY LEE

["Funeral Oration," 1800.]

FIRST in war-first in peace-and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life; pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him, as were the effects of that example lasting.

To his equals he was condescending, to his inferiors kind, and to the dear objects of his affections exemplarily tender; correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.

His last scene comported with the whole tenor of his life-although in extreme pain, not a sigh, not a groan escaped him; and with undisturbed serenity, he closed his wellspent life. Such was the man America lost-such was the man for whom our nation mourns.

Methinks I see his august image, and I hear falling from his venerable lips these deep-sinking words:

"Cease, sons of America, lamenting our separation: go on, and confirm by your wisdom the fruits of our joint councils, joint efforts, and common dangers; reverence religion, diffuse knowledge throughout your land, patronize the arts and sciences; let Liberty and order be inseparable companions. Control party spirit, the bane of free governments; observe good faith to, and cultivate peace with all nations, shut up every avenue to foreign influence, contract rather than extend national connection, rely on yourselves only; be Americans in thought, word and deed; thus will you give immortality to that nation which was the constant object of my terrestrial labors; thus will you preserve undisturbed to the latest posterity the felicity of a people to me most dear, and thus will you supply (if my happiness is now aught to you) the only vacancy in the round of pure bliss high Heaven bestows."

CHIVALRY

By EMMANUEL DE LA MORINIÈRE

[From an address delivered at Odd Fellows Hall, New Orleans, April 5, 1893 and published in "The Louisiana Book', 1894.]

To the performance of their duty did the knights of old bind their loyal, heroic hearts, and so gladly and enthusiastically, that in earliest time, and before even Christianity had become the very core of chivalry, and the Church had flung over its warriors' panoply the mantle of a three-fold consecration, for them

Labor in the path of duty

Gleamed up like a thing of beauty.

And the standard of it was high; none higher among the ideals of human conduct. The respect and obedience paid by the young to the old, the essential meaning of which was education for the one part and self-discipline for the other; the modesty of mien, pure aims, and high morality of the young knights; the courtesy and protection granted to women; the loyalty which was as the substance of honor, and the honor which was as the very life of a man's soul; the horror