“This young minister undoubtedly meant well. He’s about the kind of a chap that I’ve seen in law-offices working for fifteen dollars a week––industrious, zealous, and able up to a point, and all right under supervision. He can be trusted to handle a small case with intelligence and judgment. But I wouldn’t go to him for instruction in philosophy; and if I wished to relay the foundation of my life I should, naturally, consult some other person. As one might expect, he had searched the cellars of theology for canned goods, and with extraordinary success.
“The young man had so lately arrived in this world he couldn’t be expected to 142 know much about its affairs, and especially about those of Samuel. It was graceful and decorous elocution. The Deacon expressed his opinion of it in snores, and I longed to follow suit.
“The sermon ended with a dramatic recitation, and on our way out the minister met us at the door.
“‘You must manage to keep these people awake,’ I suggested to him.
“‘How am I to do it?’ he asked.
“‘Well, you might have a corps of pin-stickers carefully distributed in the pews, or you could put the pins in your sermon. I recommend the latter.’
“We went away with a sense of injury.
“‘Let’s keep trying,’ said Betsey, ‘until you find some one you would care to hear. I would feel at home in any of our churches. These days there’s no essential difference between Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. 143 I’ve talked with all of them, and their differences are dead and gone. They stand in the printed creeds, but are no longer in the hearts of the people.’
“‘Then why all these empty churches?’ I asked. ‘Why don’t the people get together in one great church?’
“‘Don’t talk about the millennium,’ said Betsey. ‘We must try to make the best of what we have.’