drawing near to the lodge, where, when all assembled, they formed a respectful and willing congregation of perhaps fifty worshippers, and listened to the words of the preacher, who sought to lead them by the Gospel of the Cross through nature up to the God of grace. Such opportunities were rare for them; never, indeed, was a sermon heard there except on these occasions. The devout (for God the Saviour had a "few names" among them) "received the word with gladness;" all were attentive, and their visitors found, when joining with them in the primitive service, a religious power seldom felt in more ceremonious homage.
On one of those sacred days there came among the rest two young, graceful women, whose air and dress marked them as of a superior cultivation. Their modest voices enriched the trembling psalmody, and their countenances showed strong sympathy with the preacher's utterances. At the close of the worship, they made, through one of their neighbors, a request that the minister would pay a visit to their mother, who had been a long time ill, and was near death. A promise was readily given that he would do so the same day; but their home lay four miles distant, and a sudden storm forbade the attempt. The Monday morning shone brightly, though a heavy cloud at the west suggested precautions against a thunder-shower. The friends parted from the landing, each bent upon his purpose; but the chaplain's prow was turned on his mission of comfort to the sick. Had any prim amateurs of ecclesiastical conventionalities seen him with his broad-brimmed hat, necessary for shelter from the sun, a green veil thrown around it as defense from the mosquitoes near the shores, his heavy water-boots, and his whole garb chosen for aquatic exigences, (for, like Peter, he had girt his fisher's coat about him,) they would hardly have recognized his errand. But the associations of the scene with the Man of Nazareth and the Apostles by the Sea of Galilee, were in his soul, carrying him back to the primitive Christianity, and lifting him above the forms with which men have overlaid its simplicity. The boat flew over the placid waters in which lay mirrored the whole amphitheatre of the mountain-shores, green as an emerald. The wooded point hid the lodge on the one side, a swelling island the hamlet on the other. No trace of man was visible. The carol of
