his house the other
day, and he had just given three dollars for a single book."

"Perhaps it was a book he needed in his studies," suggested the old
gentleman who began the conversation.

"What's the use of book larnin' to a minister, if he's got the real
spirit in him?" chimed in a rough-looking man in the farthest corner;
"only wish you could have heard Elder North give it off--_there_ was a
real genuine preacher for you, couldn't even read his text in the Bible;
yet, sir, he would get up and reel it off as smooth and fast as the best
of them, that come out of the colleges. My notion is, it's the _spirit_
that's the thing, after all."

Several of the auditors seemed inclined to express their approbation of
this doctrine, though some remarked that Mr. Stanton was a smarter
preacher than Elder North, for all his book larnin'.

Some of the more intelligent of the circle here exchanged smiles, but
declined entering the lists in favor of "larnin'."

"O, for my part," resumed Mr. C., "I am for having a minister study, and
have books and all that, if he can afford it; but in hard times like
these, books are neither meat, drink, nor fire; and I know I can't
afford them. Now, I'm as willing to contribute my part to the minister's
salary, and every other charity, as any body, when I can get money to do
it; but in these times I _can't_ get it."

The elderly gentleman here interrupted the conversation by saying,
abruptly, "I am a townsman of Mr. Stanton's, and it is _my_ opinion that
_he_ has impoverished himself by giving in religious charity."

"Giving in charity!" exclaimed several voices; "where did he ever get
any thing to give?"

"Yet I think I speak within bounds," said the old gentleman, "when I say
that he has given more than the amount of two thousand dollars yearly to
the support of the gospel in this state; and I think I can show it to be
so."

The eyes of the auditors were now enlarged to their utmost limits, while
the old gentleman, after the fashion of shrewd old gentlemen generally,
screwed up his mouth in a very dry twist, and looked in the fire without
saying a word.

"Come now, pray tell us how this is," said several of the company.

"Well, sir," said the old man, addressing himself to Mr. C., "you are a
man of business, and will perhaps understand the case as I view it. You
were speaking this evening of lawyer Lennox. He and your minister were
both from my native place, and both there and in col