face. His
countenance showed the sullen stolidity of a man who spoke little but
listened always, of a man who indulged in suspicious thoughts. He knew
everything about his neighbours, good and bad. He might forget the
good, but never the evil. The tragedies, the sins, the misdeeds of
thirty years ago were as fresh in his memory as the scandal of
yesterday. No man had ever been tempted beyond his strength but Sam
Motherwell knew the manner of his undoing. He extended no mercy to the
fallen; he suggested no excuse for the erring.

The collector made known his errand. Sam became animated at once.

"What?" he cried angrily, "ain't that blamed thing paying yet? I've a
good notion to pull my money out of it and be done with it. What do you
take me for anyway?"

The collector ventured to call his attention to his prosperous
surroundings, and evident wealth.

"That's like you town fellows," he said indignantly. "You never think
of the hired help and twine bills, and what it costs to run a place
like this. I pay every time I go, anyway. There ain't a time that I let
the plate go by me, when I'm there. By gosh! you seem to think I've
money to burn."

The collector departed empty-handed.

The next time Sam went to Millford he was considerably surprised to
have the young minister, the Reverend Hugh Grantley, stop him on the
street and hand him twenty-five dollars.

"I understand, sir, that you wish to withdraw the money that you
invested in the Lord's work," he said as he handed the money to Sam,
whose fingers mechanically closed over the bills as he stared at the
young man.

The Rev. Hugh Grantley was a typical Scotchman, tall and broad
shouldered, with an eye like cold steel. Not many people had
contradicted the Rev. Hugh Grantley, at least to his face. His voice
could be as sweet as the ripple of a mountain stream, or vibrate with
the thunder of the surf that beats upon his own granite cliffs.

"The Lord sends you seed-time and harvest," he said, fixing his level
gray eye on the other man, who somehow avoided his gaze, "has given you
health of body and mind, sends you rain from heaven, makes his sun to
shine upon you, increases your riches from year to year. You have given
Him twenty-five dollars in return and you regret it. Is that so?"

"I don't know that I just said that," the other man stammered. "I don't
see no need of these fine churches and paid preachers. It isn't them as
goes to church most that is the bes