n which the faithful wife, in a tone of voice that beggars
description, reiterated her--"Gouge him," etc.--in which she was again
joined by her husband's allies, and that to the alarm of his invisible
foe; for Bill now rose to his knees, and on uttering some mystic jargon
symptomatic of conversion, he was said to have "got religion";--and then
all his new friends and spiritual guides united in fresh prayers and
shouts of thanksgiving.

It was now very late at night; and joining a few other citizens of
Woodville, we were soon in our saddles and buried in the darkness of the
forest. For a long time, however, the uproar of the spiritual elements
at the camp continued at intervals to swell and diminish on the hearing;
and, often came a yell that rose far above the united din of other
screams and outcries. Nay, at the distance of nearly two miles, could be
distinguished a remarkable and sonorous _oh_!--like the faintly heard
explosion of a mighty elocutional class, practising under a master. And
yet my comrades, who had heard this peculiar cry more than once, all
declared that this wonderful _oh_-ing was performed by the separate
voice of our townsman, Eolus Letherlung, Esq.!

CONCLUSION

A camp-meeting of _this sort_ is, all things considered, the very best
contrivance for making the largest number of converts in the shortest
possible time; and also for enlarging most speedily the bounds of a
Church _Visible_ and _Militant_.

A RHYME FOR CHRISTMAS

BY JOHN CHALLING

Publication delayed by the author's determined but futile attempt to
find the rhyme

If _Browning_ only were here,
This yule-ish time o' the year--
This mule-ish time o' the year,--
Stubbornly still refusing
To add to the rhymes we've been using
Since the first Christmas-glee
(One might say) chantingly
Rendered by rudest hinds
Of the pelt-clad shepherding kinds
Who didn't know Song from b-
U-double-l's-foot!--Pah!--
(Haply the old Egyptian _ptah_--
Though I'd hardly wager a baw-
Bee--or a _bumble_, for that--
And that's flat!)....
But the thing that I want to get at
Is a rhyme for _Christmas_--
Nay! nay! nay! nay! not _isthmus_--
The t- and the h- sounds covertly are
Gnawing the nice auracular
Senses until one may hear them gnar--
And the terminal, too, for m_a_s, is m_u_s,
So _that_ will not do for us.
Try for it--sigh for it--cry for it