e winds was
opened, and a gust of sound came forth which so stunned the listening
ears of my hearers that they dazedly mistook it for eloquence.

I painted to them the picture of the incorrigible sinner "on flames of
burning brimstone tossed, forever, oh forever lost." I did not intend
to be a hypocrite; but drifted with the revival tide.

I discoursed often that summer to audiences that crowded the church
to the doors. I was but fifteen years of age, and was called: "The
wonderful boy preacher."

One Sunday the village crank came to hear me, honoring the occasion
by wearing a new stove-pipe hat of prodigious proportions, which he
deposited on the seat as he arose during prayer. When the amen was
pronounced, perhaps paralyzed by the fervor, he sat down upon said
stove-pipe, crushing it to a pie, then leaped from the wreck uttering
a blasphemous yell which convulsed the crowd with laughter, and thus
broke up the meeting without the benediction and passing of the
contribution-box, much to the delight of all who "steal their
preaching" on all possible occasions.

I soon found that however anxious people were to save their souls,
they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through
tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being
impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the
"prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington,
N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could
secure by going from house to house of my pupils.

On arriving there I was ushered into the imposing presence of the
Free-will Baptist minister for examination; then I was made aware that
although I had plenty of Greek and Latin, I was woefully uninstructed
in the rudiments of our mother tongue, and was saved only by the fact
that my cousin was the largest contributor to the dominie's salary.

The reverend superintendent had prepared an appalling array of
"posers" in accordance with the laws of the state, but my cousin at
my urgent request, assured him that I was an alumnus of one of the
greatest institutions in the world, that I was a clergyman of his own
denomination, that it was a waste of time to examine so distinguished
a scholar, that dinner was ready, and the hungry dominie was seduced
to the table where he partook of so much solid and liquid good cheer,
that he quite forgot his official duty, and gave me the required
certificate: thus I was saved fro