r father is a great consolation to you. He tells me of the
lovely traits of your character. If I had my children around me as he
has, if I could live in their love as he does, I would sacrifice all
else in this world."

"Why, Uncle Tom, aren't you satisfied with your calling?"

"If you refer to the ministry, I answer 'No.' The salaries of the
ministers of this country do not average five hundred dollars a year.
And yet, as a class, they are the best educated the hardest working,
poorest paid, underfed profession I know of. With less culture, less
mental power, there are men in all walks of life that are paid three
times the salary even our most eloquent and useful ministers receive.
And yet, no matter how great the good a minister may have accomplished,
if he makes the slightest allusion to the matter of money, it discredits
him. That I have worn the livery of Christ all my days will buoy me up,
and that I am proud of my service in the army of the Lord lends
happiness. I have endeavored to maintain the character I have assumed in
meekness and sincerity. But the character of a minister is the most
assailable of that of any of the professions. The slightest slip, the
one misstep, and he is lost. Like Samson, shorn of his hair, he is a
poor, feeble, faltering creature, the pity of his friends, the derision
of the public."

"Well, Uncle Tom, yours is not the only profession that's held back by
popular prejudices. It's one of the peculiarities of the littleness of
human nature. It's a sure sign of a dwarfed mind to have your actions
criticized and misconstrued. There's not a great calamity, a pestilence,
a plague, a drought or a famine, a Galveston disaster, a Johnstown
flood, a poor family's poverty, that the theatrical profession are not
appealed to first and are first to respond. But if a theatrical man
interests himself in public affairs his motives are impugned."

"I am surprised at this, Alfred. It sounds so very much like the
restrictions placed upon ministers. Does it hamper you in your affairs?"

"Not in the least. That is, not now. There was a time when I was younger
that I felt the sting pretty keenly. Now it has a different effect. You
remember Bill Jones in Brownsville? He had a boy named Bill. Young Bill
was under discussion by the cracker barrel committee in Oliver Baldwin's
grocery. Andy Smith had just remarked that 'Bill Jones's boy is a durned
fool; he don't know nuthin'; he don't know enough to gether