I will now introduce another actor to the reader—Elder Blunt, the circuit preacher. Elder Blunt was a good man. His religion was of the most genuine, experimental kind. He was a very plain man. He, like Mr. Wesley, would no more dare to preach a fine sermon than wear a fine coat. He was celebrated for his common-sense way of exhibiting the principles of religion. He would speak just what he thought, and as he felt. He somehow got the name of being an eccentric preacher, as every man, I believe, does who never prevaricates, and always acts and speaks as he thinks. Somehow or other, Elder Blunt had heard of Sister Scrub, and that infirmity of hers, and he resolved to cure her. On his first round he stopped at "Squire Scrub's," as all other itinerants had done before him. John, the young man, took the elder's horse and put him in the stable, and the preacher entered the house. He was shown into the best room, and soon felt very much at home. He expected to hear something in due time disparaging the domestic arrangements, but he heard it sooner than he expected. This time, if Sister Scrub could be credited, her house was all upside down; it wasn't fit to stay in, and she was sadly mortified to be caught in such a plight. The elder looked all around the room, as if to observe the terrible disorder, but he said not a word. By-and-by the dinner was ready, and the elder sat down with the family to a well spread table. Here, again, Sister Scrub found everything faulty; the coffee wasn't fit to drink, and she hadn't anything fit to eat. The elder lifted his dark eye to her face; for a moment he seemed to penetrate her very soul with his austere gaze; then slowly rising from the table, he said, "Brother Scrub, I want my horse immediately; I must leave!"
"Why, Brother Blunt, what is the matter?"
"Matter? Why, sir, your house isn't fit to stay in, and you haven't anything fit to eat or drink, and I won't stay."
Both the "Squire" and his lady were confounded. This was a piece of eccentricity entirely unlooked for. They were stupefied. But the elder was gone. He wouldn't stay in a house not fit to stay in, and where there wasn't anything fit to eat and drink.
Poor Sister Scrub! She wept like a child at her folly. She "knew it would be all over town," she said, "and everybody would be laughing at her." And then, how should she meet the blunt, honest elder again? "She hadn't meant anything by what she had said." Ah! she never thought how wicked it was to say so much that didn't mean anything.
The upshot of the whole matter was, that Sister Scrub "saw herself as others saw her." She ceased making apologies, and became a wiser and better Christian. Elder Blunt always puts up there, always finds everything as it should be, and, with all his eccentricities, is thought by the family the most agreeable, as he is acknowledged by everybody to be the most consistent, of men.—Rev. J. V. Watson.
II.—THE PRESENCE.
Mr. Johnson, an English traveler, relates, in his notes on North America, the following story:
"At Boston," he says, "I was told of a gentleman in the neighborhood who, having a farm servant, found him very satisfactory in every respect, except that he invariably came into his employer's room with his hat on.
"'John,' said he to the man one day, 'you always keep your hat on when you come into the room.'