urch members as to
whether fermented wine should be used at the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, and when a vote was taken in favor of the unfermented, the
senior deacon withdrew in disgust and joined the "Pedo Baptist" church
where he could have alcohol in his.

All this of course made the judicious grieve, and the cause of
religion to languish. This was the time, famous in church history,
when a great reaction set in against Cotton Mather theology, who
proclaimed that the pleasure of the elect would be greatly enhanced
by looking down from the sublime heights of heaven upon the non-elect
writhing in hell.

Unitarianism grew apace, and Henry Ward Beecher immortalized himself
by saying: "Many preachers act like the foolish angler who goes to the
trout brook with a big pole, ugly line and naked hook, thrashes the
waters into a foam, shouting, bite or be damned, bite or be damned!
Result; they are not what their great Master commanded them to
be--successful fishers of men."

Our pastor was a good man despite his peculiarities, and led a
blameless though colorless life; but his "hard shell" theology, his
long years of monkish seclusion in the training schools, engendering
gloomy views as to the final misery of the majority of human beings,
his poverty and lack of adaptation, banished all cheerfulness from his
demeanor, and when I recall his sad, solemn face, made so largely by
his views in regard to the horrors awaiting the most of us in the next
world, I find myself repeating the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe in
the "Minister's Wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted
by the old theology; "Oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? Brides
should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of
despair, and only one in a thousand escapes."

When I semi-occasionally peruse one of the sermons I preached in those
days of my youth, I am strongly inclined to crawl into a den and pull
the hole in after me. I can fully believe the orator who said that a
stupid speech once saved his life.

"I went back home," he said, "last year to spend Thanksgiving with the
old folks. While waiting for the turkey to cook, I went into the woods
gunning--it would amuse me, and wouldn't hurt the game, for I couldn't
hit the broadside of a barn at ten paces. While promenading, it
commenced to rain, and not wishing to wet my best Sunday-go-to-meetings,
I crawled into a hollow log for shelter; at last the clouds rolled by
a