“This bein' Hard-shell Sunday,” said the Bishop that afternoon when his congregation met, “cattle of that faith will come up to the front rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these exercises.”
“It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell lodge, I may be a little rusty on the grip an' pass word, but I'm a member in good standin' if I am rusty.”
There was some laughing at this, from the other members, and after the Hard-shells had come to the front the Bishop caught the infection and went on with a sly wink at the others.
“The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I jined any other lodge; for makin' honorable exception, the other churches don't know the diff'r'nce betwixt twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan pine-top.
“The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I sed. I hadn't sampled none of the others”—he whispered aside—“an' I didn't know there was any better licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little riper, the Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub an' champagne.
“A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is a good thing for any religion. I've knowed many a man to take a dram jes' in time to keep him out of a divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do anybody no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef he'd a stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But one of these old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with him all night onct, an' tor't the old man how to make a mint julip; an' when I went down the next year to hold services his wife told me the good old man had been gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed, 'till a little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im ter mix greens in his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself to death.'
“There's another thing I like about two of the churches I'm in—the Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians—an' that is special Providence. If I didn't believe in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.
“My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' we're all babes in God's sight.
“The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to some of our po' boys the last sermon that many of 'em ever heard. An' I told 'em not to dodge the nex' day, but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men, for ever' shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should hit.
“In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer, but chief of scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was hot enough. In the hottest part of it General Johnston rid up, an' when he saw our exposed position he told us to hold the line, but to lay down for shelter. A big tree was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral seed me an' he smiled an' sed: