me across the street and run over and grasp
me by the hand and inquire after my health in so hearty, so honest a
fashion that I cannot bear to look him in the face. And as he beams on
me and throws his arm over my shoulder, I can only blush and shift from
one foot to the other and stammer out some excuse for hurrying away.
Passers-by stop and admire the man's affection and concern for one who
is evidently some poor devil of a relation from the country. One Sunday
he waylaid me on Riverside Drive and introduced me to his wife as one of
his dearest friends. I mumbled something about its not having rained the
entire week, and his wife, who was a stately person in silks, looked at
me out of a cold eye. Then and there I knew she decided that I was a
person who had something to conceal and probably took advantage of her
husband.

No; the more I think of it, the more convinced am I that very few men
pass their time in contemplating death, which is the end of all things.
Only those people do it who have nothing else to be afraid of, or who,
like undertakers and bacteriologists, make a living out of it.

II

THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL

Harding declares that a solid thought before going to bed sets him
dreaming just like a bit of solid food. One night, Harding and I
discussed modern tendencies in the Church. As a result Harding dreamt
that night that he was reading a review in the _Theological Weekly_ of
November 12, 2009.

"Seldom," wrote the reviewer, "has it been our good fortune to meet with
as perfect a piece of work as James Brown Ducey's 'The American
Clergyman in the Early Twentieth Century.' The book consists of exactly
half a hundred biographies of eminent churchmen; in these fifty brief
sketches is mirrored faithfully the entire religious life, external and
internal, of the American people eighty or ninety years ago. We can do
our readers no better service than to reproduce from Mr. Ducey's pages,
in condensed form, the lives of half a dozen typical clergymen, leaving
the reader to frame his own conception of the magnificent activity which
the Church of that early day brought to the service of religion.

"The Rev. Pelatiah W. Jenks, who was called to the richest pulpit in New
York in 1912, succeeded within less than three years in building up an
unrivalled system of dancing academies and roller-skating rinks for
young people. Under him the attendance at the Sunday afternoon sparring
exhibitions in the vestry r