After the exercises one of the ministers made a very good speech, in which he told the children that if they wanted to rise above being mere drudges at the dictation of others, they must study, they must work, they must learn to think. What they did, they must do with their might; when they played, they must play in earnest; and when they studied, they must study in earnest; and that to be industrious and to be in earnest, was the only way to be anything, or to do anything in the world.
He made the children laugh when he told them that in some parts of New Hampshire the fields were so stony, that it was jocosely said that the farmers sharpened their sheep’s noses that they might eat the grass growing between the stones. This was a wonderful story for western children, who never saw stones on their broad fertile prairies.
As the band played its farewell, the company left the ground greatly pleased with the day’s entertainment.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CAMP-MEETING.
The holy sounds float up the dell
To fill my ravish’d ear,
And now the glorious anthems swell
Of worshipers sincere;
Of hearts bow’d in the dust that shed
Faith’s penitential tear.