one
of which two pins were always to be seen stuck in with the most reverent
precision. When seated, the top of the pew came just to his chin, so
that his silvery, placid head rose above it like the moon above the
horizon. His head was one that might have been sketched for a St.
John--bald at the top, and around the temples adorned with a soft flow
of bright fine hair,--

"That down his shoulders reverently spread,
As hoary frost with spangles doth attire
The naked branches of an oak half dead."

He was then of great age, and every line of his patient face seemed to
say, "And now, Lord, what wait I for?" Yet still, year after year, was
he to be seen in the same place, with the same dutiful punctuality.

The services he offered to his God were all given with the exactness of
an ancient Israelite. No words could have persuaded him of the propriety
of meditating when the choir was singing, or of sitting down, even
through infirmity, before the close of the longest prayer that ever was
offered. A mighty contrast was he to his fellow-officer, Deacon Abrams,
a tight, little, tripping, well-to-do man, who used to sit beside him
with his hair brushed straight up like a little blaze, his coat buttoned
up trig and close, his psalm book in hand, and his quick gray eyes
turned first on one side of the broad aisle, and then on the other, and
then up into the gallery, like a man who came to church on business, and
felt responsible for every thing that was going on in the house.

A great hinderance was the business talent of this good little man to
the enjoyments of us youngsters, who, perched along in a row on a low
seat in front of the pulpit, attempted occasionally to diversify the
long hour of sermon by sundry small exercises of our own, such as making
our handkerchiefs into rabbits, or exhibiting, in a sly way, the apples
and gingerbread we had brought for a Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears
of some discreet meeting-going dog, who now and then would soberly
pitapat through the broad aisle. But woe be to us during our contraband
sports, if we saw Deacon Abrams's sleek head dodging up from behind the
top of the deacon's seat. Instantly all the apples, gingerbread, and
handkerchiefs vanished, and we all sat with our hands folded, looking as
demure as if we understood every word of the sermon, and more too.

There was a great contrast between these two deacons in their services
and prayers, when, as was often the ca