bours as "adherents of
other religious bodies," while the Hopkinsians politely inquired as to
the hours at which "mass was celebrated" in the brown edifice and were
careful to speak of their own services as "Divine worship": how Mr.
Jones went so far, in his Washington's Birthday Speech, as to
compliment the architectural effect of "the old meeting-house on the
green, that venerable monument of an earnest period of dissent," to
which Mr. Hopkins made the retort courteous by giving thanks, in his
prayer on the same occasion, for "the gracious memories of fraternal
intercourse which still hallowed the little brown chapel beside the
cemetery": how all these strokes and counterstrokes were given and
exchanged in a decorous and bloodless religious war which enlivened a
Samaritan autumn and winter almost to the point of effervescence: and
how they were prevented from doing any great harm by the general good
feeling and the constitutional sense of humour of the village, it is
not my purpose, I say, to relate in detail.

The fact is, the incipient fermentation passed away almost as naturally
and suddenly as it began. Old Cap'n Elihu Gray, who had made a tidy
fortune in his voyages to the East Indies and retired to enjoy it in a
snug farmhouse beside the Lirrapaug River, a couple of miles below the
village, was reputed to be something of a freethinker, but he used to
come up, every month, to one or other of the two churches to sample a
sermon. His summary of the controversy which threatened the peace of
Samaria, seemed to strike the common-sense of his fellow-townsmen in
the place where friendly laughter lies.

"Wa'al," said he, puffing a meditative pipe, "I've seen folks pray to
cows and jest despise folks 'at prayed to elephants. 'N I've seen folks
whose r'ligion wouldn't 'low 'em to eat pig's meat fight with folks
whose r'ligion wouldn't 'low 'em to eat meat 't all. But I never seen
reel Christians dispise other reel Christians for prayin' at seven in
the mornin' 'stead of at eleven, nor yet fight 'bout the difference
'tween a passel o' boys singin' in white nightgowns an' half-a-dozen
purty young gals tunin' their voices to a pipe-organ an' a harp o'
sollum saound. I don't 'low there is eny devil, but ef ther' wuz, guess
that's the kind o' fight 'd make him grin."

This opinion appeared to reach down to the fundamental saving grace of
humour in the Samaritan mind. The vestry persuaded the Reverend
Willibert that the time