TRIAL SERMONS ON BULL-SKIN
"Tsch, pshaw! dat man jes tuk his tex' at de fust an nevah lef it."
Brother Sneedon remarked to a friend: "Well, he did try to use a good deal o' high langgidge, but whut we want is grace an' speritual feelin'."
The Williams faction went home with colours flying. They took the preacher to dinner. They were exultant. The friends of Brother Sneedon were silent but thoughtful.
It was true, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Reverend Elias Smith had made a wonderful impression upon his hearers,—an impression that might not entirely fade away before the night on which the new pastor was to be voted for. Comments on the sermon did not end with the closing of that Sabbath day. The discussion of its excellences was prolonged into the next week, and continued with a persistency dangerous to the aspirations of any rival candidate. No one was more fully conscious of this menacing condition of affairs than Hezekiah Sneedon himself. He knew that for the minds of the people to rest long upon the exploits of Elder Smith would be fatal to the chances of his own candidate; so he set about inventing some way to turn the current of public thought into
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