In conclusion I can only add: If there are more boys in the Afton Graded School like the two you have sent us, we shall be more than glad to welcome them at Clinton Academy at any time.
Most cordially yours,
S. D. Phillips.
Mr. Carleton handed this letter to Mr. Greenough the next time he met him. That worthy gentleman adjusted his glasses and read it through.
"Well, pastor," he remarked as he finished, "I'm glad to hear this of those boys. I expected it. You see, too, Phillips' opinion about Ray coincides with mine. His is a remarkable case. As I had occasion to remark once before, I never in all my life saw so marvelous an illustration of the Scripture, 'Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.' I am no prophet, but I believe the Lord has some signal work for that lad to do in our own or in foreign lands."
And he was right.
CHAPTER XX.
THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
It was a soft balmy day in June, just two years later than the close of our previous chapter. The little village of Wenton lay nestling white and beautiful among its surrounding hills. The words white and beautiful are meant literally. For the mill and cottages and stores and schoolhouse and chapel were all as white as fresh paint could make them, and the village was beautiful because every cottage had its garden, and green plot, and shrubs and flowers; while the mill was surrounded with tasteful lawns and tall shade trees and climbing vines.
George Branford firmly believed that there was a moral and an elevating influence in the beauties God has thrown around us. He said it costs the manufacturer but little more to make his cottages and factories pretty and tasteful in their surroundings, and that he is more than compensated for the extra outlay in the ennobling effects upon his employés. They are broadened in mind, made contented in heart, and elevated in spirit. So, with Mr. Bacon's permission, he had during the two years and more that he had been here at Wenton carried out his ideas to a practical result, and he was satisfied; for there never was a happier nor more contented manufacturing community.
The little village had grown somewhat also during this time. First of all, the mill itself had been so enlarged as to be hardly recognizable. Indeed, the additions were so extensive that the old mill was only a wing of the main building now. Then this enlargement of the mill necessitated more tenement houses; so a new street was opened back to the hills, and that row of pretty white cottages was built. Nor was this all. There was one other new building. Just down the street there, and almost in the centre of the clustered houses was a chapel, its white spire rising sixty feet toward the heavens. That has a history all its own.