ce, that so many men and
women bravely jump into the furnace of prosperity and expose themselves
to the drying influences of city life.

The first fire that is lighted on the hearth in the autumn seems to
bring out the cold weather. Deceived by the placid appearance of the
dying year, the softness of the sky, and the warm color of the foliage,
we have been shivering about for days without exactly comprehending what
was the matter. The open fire at once sets up a standard of comparison.
We find that the advance guards of winter are besieging the house. The
cold rushes in at every crack of door and window, apparently signaled
by the flame to invade the house and fill it with chilly drafts and
sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone. It needs a roaring fire
to beat back the enemy; a feeble one is only an invitation to the
most insulting demonstrations. Our pious New England ancestors were
philosophers in their way. It was not simply owing to grace that
they sat for hours in their barnlike meeting-houses during the winter
Sundays, the thermometer many degrees below freezing, with no fire,
except the zeal in their own hearts,--a congregation of red noses and
bright eyes. It was no wonder that the minister in the pulpit warmed up
to his subject, cried aloud, used hot words, spoke a good deal of the
hot place and the Person whose presence was a burning shame, hammered
the desk as if he expected to drive his text through a two-inch plank,
and heated himself by all allowable ecclesiastical gymnastics. A few of
their followers in our day seem to forget that our modern churches are
heated by furnaces and supplied with gas. In the old days it would
have been thought unphilosophic as well as effeminate to warm the
meeting-houses artificially. In one house I knew, at least, when it was
proposed to introduce a stove to take a little of the chill from the
Sunday services, the deacons protested against the innovation. They said
that the stove might benefit those who sat close to it, but it would
drive all the cold air to the other parts of the church, and freeze the
people to death; it was cold enough now around the edges. Blessed days
of ignorance and upright living! Sturdy men who served God by resolutely
sitting out the icy hours of service, amid the rattling of windows and
the carousal of winter in the high, windswept galleries! Patient women,
waiting in the chilly house for consumption to pick out his victims, and
replace the c