He had, however, been called to another field of labor, a few weeks previous to the arrival of our friends, leaving the two congregations pastorless, and the pretty cottage built for him at Viamede without a tenant.
Still they were not entirely without the preaching of the word, now one and now another coming to supply the pulpits for a Sunday or two.
At present they were filled by a young minister who came as a candidate, and whose services had been engaged for several weeks.
Elsie and her family were paying no visits now in this time of mourning, but nothing but sickness, or a very severe storm, ever kept them from church. They attended both services, and in the evening the older ones gathered about the table in the library with their Bibles, and, with Cruden's Concordance and other helps at hand, spent an hour or more in the study of the word.
"Mamma," said little Rosie, one Sunday as they were walking slowly homeward from the nearer church, "why don't we have a minister that believes the Bible?"
"My child, don't you think Mr. Jones believes it?"
"No, mamma," most emphatically, "because he contradicts it; he said there's only one devil, and my Bible says Jesus cast out devils—seven out of Mary Magdalen, and ever so many out of one man, besides other ones out of other folks."
"And last Sunday, when he was preaching about Jonah, he said it was a wicked and foolish practice to cast lots," remarked Harold, "while the Bible tells us that the Lord commanded the Israelites to divide their land by lot, and that the apostles cast lots to choose a successor to Judas."
"Yes," said Violet, "and when Achan had sinned, didn't they cast lots to find out who it was that troubled Israel?"
"And to choose a king in the days of the prophet Samuel," added their older sister. "How strange that any one should say it was a foolish and wicked practice!"