tle's spiritual
welfare; but he had often been sent for by aged sinners in more
immediate peril, apparently, without any such disturbance of the
circulation.

To know whether a minister, young or still in flower; is in safe or
dangerous paths, there are two psychometers, a comparison between
which will give as infallible a return as the dry and wet bulbs of the
ingenious "Hygrodeik." The first is the black broadcloth forming the
knees of his pantaloons; the second, the patch of carpet before his
mirror. If the first is unworn and the second is frayed and threadbare,
pray for him. If the first is worn and shiny, while the second keeps its
pattern and texture, get him to pray for you.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker should have gone down on his knees then and there,
and sought fervently for the grace which he was like to need in the
dangerous path just opening before him. He did not do this; but he stood
up before his looking-glass and parted his hair as carefully as if he
had been separating the saints of his congregation from the sinners, to
send the list to the statistical columns of a religious newspaper. He
selected a professional neckcloth, as spotlessly pure as if it had been
washed in innocency, and adjusted it in a tie which was like the
white rose of Sharon. Myrtle Hazard was, he thought, on the whole, the
handsomest girl he had ever seen; Susan Posey was to her as a buttercup
from the meadow is to a tiger-lily. He, knew the nature of the nervous
disturbances through which she had been passing, and that she must be in
a singularly impressible condition. He felt sure that he could establish
intimate spiritual relations with her by drawing out her repressed
sympathies, by feeding the fires of her religious imagination, by
exercising all those lesser arts of fascination which are so familiar to
the Don Giovannis, and not always unknown to the San Giovannis.

As for the hard doctrines which he used to produce sensations with in
the pulpit, it would have been a great pity to worry so lovely a girl,
in such a nervous state, with them. He remembered a savory text
about being made all things to all men, which would bear application
particularly well to the case of this young woman. He knew how to weaken
his divinity, on occasion, as well as an old housewife to weaken her
tea, lest it should keep people awake.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker was a man of emotions. He loved to feel his heart
beat; he loved all the forms of non-alcoholic dr