"'But Daniel Miller is so deaf,' objected one. 'He grows worse and worse; I notice that his wife always has to find the hymns for him, and the place in the Bible, and point to the text.'
"'What if he is deaf?' said his champion; 'a man doesn't have to hear in order to add money and keep accounts, and make out bills and send them out, and keep everything straight. I believe it is work that he could do, and I believe it would do him good; make him feel that he can do something for the church, and that we have confidence in him. I tell you what it is, brethren, I'm going to propose his name at our next election.'
"Well, he was as good as his word, and sure enough, all the people said 'Amen.' They did it with so much enthusiasm, and with such a look on their faces that said, 'What a splendid idea! I wonder we never thought of it before,' that there was quite an excitement, and Mrs. Miller looked about her, and the tears began to gather in her eyes, and she put her head down suddenly on the seat in front of her. She was a grand, good woman—a helpmeet to her good husband in every sense of the word.
"Well, Daniel Miller looked around with that meek, inquiring look on his face, a little troubled, as much as to say, 'Are you having a good time, brethren, or is there something going on in the Lord's house that oughtn't to be; I'm jealous for his honor; I hope all is well.'
"The chairman got out of his chair of office and went down the aisle, and bent over Mr. Miller, and said in a good, loud voice, 'You have been elected our Church Treasurer by a unanimous vote.'
"You ought to have seen his face then; it was a picture. It flushed and glowed, and his eyes grew dim, and his lips quivered, and it seemed for a minute that he couldn't speak at all. Then he stammered out something about not being fitted for the work—his infirmity being so great; he wished he could do something, he would be glad to, if he could, but maybe it was a risk to try it.
"Then the chairman put down his mouth to his ear again, and called out, 'We all stand ready to go your security, every one of us.'
"And then, sir, if you will believe it, that decorous assembly, made up of a class of people who believed every one of them in doing things decently and in order, just clapped their hands, and he understood it, and he got out his handkerchief very suddenly. You never saw anything work more like a charm than that arrangement did all around.
"Daniel Miller took hold of the work with a will, I tell you, and the work was never better done. His 'infirmity,' as he always meekly called it, was a positive advantage to him. There wasn't any use in trying to tell him how the accounts stood, or explain away this or that; he couldn't hear; it all had to be reduced to writing. And when a man sits down in quiet to make a written account of anything that another man is expected to fully understand, why he uses language carefully, don't you see? You don't suppose they were foolish enough, when his year was out to go and put in another treasurer, do you? Not a bit of it; the machine was running too smoothly. They elected him again by as large a vote as before.
"'It does my heart good,' one old lady said, 'to see Daniel Miller go up for the collections on Sundays. He does it with such a glad look on his face, as if he had found out something he could do for the church, and do well.'