r would allow me to do, for
the truth is, he was quite as amusing as a circus clown.

With the exception of the Colonel's and a few other pews in the vicinity
of the pulpit, all of the seats were mere rough benches, without backs,
and placed so closely together as to interfere uncomfortably with the
knees of the sitters. The house was full, and the congregation as
attentive as any I ever saw. All classes were there; the black
serving-man away off by the doorway, the poor white a little higher up,
the small turpentine-farmer a little higher still, and the wealthy
planter, of the class to which the Colonel belonged, on 'the highest
seats of the synagogue,' and in close proximity to the preacher.

The 'man of prayer' was a tall, lean, raw-boned, angular-built
individual, with a thin, sharp, hatchet-face, a small sunken eye, and
long, loose hair, brushed back and falling over the collar of a seedy
black coat. He looked like nothing in the world I have ever seen, and
his pale, sallow face, and cracked, wheezy voice, were in comic keeping
with his discourse. His text was: 'Speak unto the children of Israel,
that they go forward.' And addressing the motley gathering of poor
whites and small-planters before him as the 'chosen people of God,' he
urged them to press on in the mad course their State had chosen. It was
a political harangue, a genuine stump-speech, but its frequent allusion
to the auditory as the legitimate children of the old patriarch, and the
rightful heirs of all the promises, struck me as out of place in a rural
district of South-Carolina, however appropriate it might have been in
one of the large towns, before an audience of merchants and traders, who
are, almost to a man, Jews.

The services over, the congregation slowly left the church. Gathered in
groups in front of the 'meeting-house,' they were engaging in a general
discussion of the affairs of the day, when the Colonel and I emerged
from the doorway. The better class greeted my host with considerable
cordiality, but I noticed that the well-to-do, small planters, who
composed the greater part of the assemblage, received him with decided
coolness. These people were the 'North county folks' on whom the
overseer had invoked a hanging. Except that their clothing was more
uncouth and ill-fashioned, and their faces generally less 'cute' of
expression, they did not differ materially in appearance from the rustic
citizens who may be seen on any pleasant Sunday