Brother B. They were whispering over the back of the
bench that separated them. The sweat was standing out on Brother A's
forehead, his brows bristled with horror, while Brother B smiled calmly
at him.

"Go on, B! you know I can't pray in public!" I heard him say.

"He didn't ask me, he called on you," retorted Brother B.

Thus they had it back and forth for more than a minute. Then William
groaned, which added the one touch that rendered Brother A frantic.
Casting a ferociously damaging look at Brother B, he nudged the lady
sitting beside him and whispered:

"Lead this prayer, madam, I can't!"

And she led it in a sweet high treble that must have surprised William
and even the angels in Heaven, if they were expecting to hear the
petition in the ordinary masculine bass which is usually characteristic
of such petitions.

But I was going to tell how disconcerting it was to William to serve
people who were apparently religious and worldly-minded at the same
time. He could not reconcile this kind of diphthong living with his
notions of piety. At least their sins lay heavily on his conscience.

One Sabbath morning in June he entered the pulpit in a Sinai mood,
determined to read the Church Rules and to apply them severely. He
began by selecting a condemnatory Psalm, took his text simply as a
threat from Jeremiah in one of his bad moods, and after a severe hymn
and a mournful Rachel prayer he arose, folded his spectacles and fixed
his eyes burningly upon the innocent faces of his congregation, which
had a "What have we done?" expression on them that would have moved an
angel to impatience.

"Brethren and sisters," he said after a frightful spiritual pause, "it
is my duty this morning to call you back out of the far country into
which you have gone, to your Father's house. I blame myself for your
dreadful condition. I have not had the courage to tell you of your
faults as a preacher should tell his people when he sees them wandering
in the forbidden paths of worldliness and sin. I have not been a
faithful shepherd to you, and doubtless the Lord will lay your sins
upon my head. But this morning I am resolved to do my duty by you, no
matter what it costs."

The congregation took on the expression of a child about to be laid
across the parent's knee. But when he opened the Discipline and
proceeded to read the Rules, following each with solemn, almost
personal applications to conditions under his very nose, i