least a half dozen denominations were represented. The greater number
of these, however, had not had much success in establishing their own
peculiar form of worship, except for a little while at a time, and the
greater part of the people were at this time more or less closely
identified with the village corporation. So that it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say, that all Gershom was moved to welcome the Reverend
William Maxwell among them.

Never, except perhaps in their most confidential whispers among
themselves, did the wise men of Gershom confess that they were
disappointed in their minister. They had not expected perfection, or
they said they had not, but each and every one of them had expected some
one very different from the silent, sallow, heavy-eyed young man whom
Jacob Holt, at whose home he was for the present to live, introduced to
them.

Something had been said of the getting up of a monster tea-meeting to
welcome him, but uncertainty in the time of his coming, because of
illness, had prevented this, and as soon as he was seen there was a
silent, but general decision among those in authority that this would
not have been a successful measure. So he was conducted from house to
house by Jacob Holt, or some other of the responsible people, and he was
praised to his flock, and his flock were praised to him, but there was
not much progress made toward acquaintance for a while, and even the
least observing of them could see that there were times when contact
with strangers, to say nothing of the necessity of making himself
agreeable to them, was almost more than the poor young man could bear.

Still, nobody confessed to disappointment. On the contrary, Jacob Holt
and the rest of the leaders of public opinion declared constantly that
he was "the right man in the right place." Of Scottish parentage,
brought up from his boyhood in Canada, and having received his
theological education in the United States, if he were not the man to
unite the various contending national elements in Gershom society, where
was such a man to be found?

No man could have every gift, it was said, and whatever Mr Maxwell
might seem to lack as to social qualities, he was a preacher. All
agreed that his sermons were wonderful. It was the elaborately prepared
discourses of his seminary days, that the young man moved by a vague,
but awful dread of breaking down, gave to his people first. It was well
that the learned professor's opi