st minister, was a benign old gentleman with an
angelic face and a heart to match. He noted the mingling of the
different religious sects in Glenoro with humble joy, and regarded the
fact that a Presbyterian elder's son should lead the singing in the
Methodist church as a mark of the broad and kindly spirit of the age
and one of the potent signs of the millennium.

He was just the sort of man to appeal to Duncan Polite's heart. His
sermon was like himself, gentle, loving and overflowing with goodwill
to all men. Duncan sat and drank it in with deepest joy; surely his
covenant was in no great danger with such a man as Mr. Ansdell in his
glen!

Thereafter, in spite of old Andrew's opposition, he could not resist
the pleasure of an occasional Sabbath evening service. He did not
always have the privilege of listening to his new friend, however. Mr.
Ansdell had another field and preached only on alternate Sabbaths in
his Glenoro pulpit. On the occasions of his absence the service was
generally taken by a student or a lay preacher from some place in the
vicinity. Sometimes the preacher was anything but a man of parts, and
was too often a source of merriment to the frivolous row of young men
in the back seats. The big college student with the long, fair hair,
who raved and foamed and battered all the fringe off the pulpit cushion
in a gallant attempt to prove that the Bible is true, a fact which,
until then, no Glenorian would have dreamed of calling in question; the
poor, halting farmer who tacked a nervous syllable to occasional words,
making his text read: "All-um we like sheep-um have gone astray-um;"
the giant from the Irish Flats who roared out a long prayer in a manner
that terrified his hearers and set all the babies crying and then ended
his bellowings with "Lord, hear our feeble breathings," all these were
a joy to the back row and the cause of much irreverent giggling in the
choir.

But whether the sermon was delivered by minister, layman or divinity
student, Duncan Polite always found something spiritually uplifting in
the service; and, indeed, so did many another, for if the preacher
sometimes lacked in oratory, he made up for it in piety, and if he
failed to shine in the pulpit, his life was nearly always a sermon
strong and convincing.

Even on the rare occasions when old Silas Todd led the service, the
time was not misspent, in the opinion of the Watchman. Silas Todd was
one of the pillars of the