eld. He seemed a man considerably past middle age and broken
down with sickness or sorrow. His figure was tall, thin and stooping;
his hair white as snow, his face pale and emaciated; his movements slow
and feeble, and his voice low and unsteady! He wore a solemn suit of
black, that made his thin form seem of skeleton proportions; a
snow-white neck-cloth, and a pair of great round iron-rimmed spectacles,
that added nothing to his good looks.

Yet this old, sickly and feeble man seemed one of fervent piety and of
burning eloquence. Every one sought his society; and when it was known
that Father Gray was to hold forth, the whole camp congregation turned
out to hear him.

It must not be supposed that in the midst of this great revival those
poor "sinners above all sinners," the burglars imprisoned in the
neighboring town, were forgotten! no, they were remembered, prayed for,
visited and exhorted. And no one took more interest in the fate of these
men than good Mrs. Condiment, who, having seen them all on that great
night at Hurricane Hall, and having with her own kind hands plastered
their heads and given them possets, could not drive out of her heart a
certain compassion for their miseries.

No one, either, admired Father Gray more than did the little old
housekeeper of Hurricane Hall, and as her table and her accommodations
were the best on the camp ground, she often invited and pressed good
Father Gray to rest and refresh himself in her tent. And the old man,
though a severe ascetic, yielded to her repeated solicitations, until at
length he seemed to live there altogether.

One day Mrs. Condiment, being seriously exercised upon the subject of
the imprisoned men, said to Father Gray, who was reposing himself in the
tent:

"Father Gray, I wished to speak to you, sir, upon the subject of those
poor wretched men who are to be tried for their lives at the next term
of the Criminal Court. Our ministers have all been to see them, and
talked to them, but not one of the number can make the least impression
on them, or bring them to any sense of their awful condition!"

"Ah, that is dreadful!" sighed the aged man.

"Yes, dreadful, Father Gray! Now I thought if you would only visit them
you could surely bring them to reason!"

"My dear friend, I would willingly do so, but I must confess to you a
weakness--a great weakness of the flesh--I have a natural shrinking from
men of blood! I know it is sinful, but indeed I cannot