length by next steamer.
H. ANGUS.
Before the close of the day in which the letter was received, few belonging to the First Church were ignorant of its contents. Mr. Asbury was right. The news created a great excitement, not only in their own parish, but throughout the town. A meeting of the voters in the First Church was called to express their opinions in regard to the subject of the paragraph.
After the opening exercises, Mr. Asbury stated the object of the meeting. Mr. Rand then started to his feet, and with a quick glance around the room, said, in a loud voice,—
"I'm as deaf as a post, from a cold I got down on my medder, and I can't hear a word you say; but my wife, she's heerd that some folks 't other side of the water are trying to get our pastor away from us, and she told me to come here and vote it right down. It's a shame, anyway, for Christians to be a-pulling and a-tearing of one another. We've got the first right to Mr. Angus, and I vote that we hold on to him, and let them get a minister nearer home. That's all I've got to say. If it's more salary than we pay him, I guess I can help make up the difference between what they'll give and what we do."
A hearty laugh followed this speech, and, as Mr. Rand had expressed in brief the wishes of all present, the meeting soon adjourned, after a unanimous vote "to hold on to their pastor," and make the question of salary satisfactory to him.
One of his neighbors having screamed this result into Mr. Rand's ear, he mounted his farm-wagon with a significant nod of his head.
"All right!" he shouted, at the top of his voice. "I darsn't go home till I knew the parish would hold on to him. My old woman would—you know." His voice was lost in the distance.
Perhaps if the good farmer had known the contents of a letter which at this very hour was being carried by wind and steam across the Atlantic he would have been still more jubilant as he sat eating his supper of cold corned beef and greens, and telling his wife, between the mouthfuls, the news he had learned at the meeting.