e, was not raised fur never
to die no more!"

The only comfort he could offer to this stricken household was that HE
knew how bad they felt, having had a brother who had died with equal
suddenness and also without hope, as he "had suosode hisself with a
gun."

This lengthy sermon was followed by a hymn, sung a line at a time at
the preacher's dictation:

"The body we now to the grave will commit,
To there see corruption till Jesus sees fit
A spirit'al body for it to prepare,
Which henceforth then shall immortality wear."

The New Mennonites being forbidden by the "Rules of the Meeting" ever
to hear a prayer or sermon by one who is not "a member," it was
necessary, at the end of the Reverend Abram Underwocht's sermon, for
all the Mennonites present to retire to a room apart and sit behind
closed doors, while the Evangelical brother put forth his false
doctrine.

So religiously stirred was Tillie by the occasion that she was strongly
tempted to rise and follow into the kitchen those who were thus
retiring from the sound of the false teacher's voice. But her
conversion not yet being complete, she kept her place.

No doubt it was not so much the character of Brother Underwocht's New
Mennonite sermon which effected this state in Tillie as that the
spiritual condition of the young girl, just awakening to her womanhood,
with all its mysterious craving, its religious brooding, its emotional
susceptibility, led her to respond with her whole soul to the first
appeal to her feelings.

Absorbed in her mournful contemplation of her own deep "conviction of
sin," she did not heed the singing, led by the Evangelical brother, of
the hymn,

"Rock of Ages, clept for me,"

nor did she hear a word of his discourse.

At the conclusion of the house services, and before the journey to the
graveyard, the supper was served, first to the mourners, and then to
all those who expected to follow the body to the grave. The third
table, for those who had prepared the meal, and the fourth, for the
hostlers, were set after the departure of the funeral procession.

Convention has prescribed that the funeral meal shall consist
invariably of cold meat, cheese, all sorts of stewed dried fruits,
pickles, "lemon rice" (a dish never omitted), and coffee.

As no one household possesses enough dishes for such an occasion, two
chests of dishes owned by the Mennonite church are sent to the house of
mourning whenever needed by a