Off-Hand Sketches | Page 2

are not only very poor, but indifferent to matters of religion, ignorant in the extreme, and not over-burdened with kind or generous feelings. On circuits of this character, the preacher meets sometimes with pretty rough treatment; and if, for his year's service, he is able to get, being, we will suppose, a single man, fifty or sixty dollars in money, he may think himself pretty well off.
To one of these hard circuits, a preacher, whom we shall call the Rev. Mr. Odell, of the New Jersey conference, found himself assigned by the bishop who presided at the annual conference. The change was felt as pretty severe, he having been on a comfortable station for two years; but as he must take the evil with the good, he conscientiously repressed all natural regrets and murmurings, and, as in duty bound, started, at the close of the conference, for his new field of labour. A day or two before leaving, and after the appointments were announced, Mr. Odell said to the brother who had ridden that circuit during the previous year--"So, I am to follow in your footsteps?"
"It appears so," was the brief reply.
"How did you like the circuit?"
"I am very well pleased to change."
Not much encouragement in that answer."
"We can't all have good places. Some of us must take our turn in the highways and byways of the land."
"True; I am not disposed to complain. I have taken up the cross, and mean to bear it to the end, if possible, without a murmur."
"As we all should. Well, brother Odell, if you pass the year on the circuit without a murmur, your faith and firmness will be strong. I can assure you that it will be more than I did--a great deal more."
"I have been among some pretty rough people in my time."
"So have I; but"--and he checked himself; "however, I will not prejudice your mind; it would be wrong. They do as well, I suppose, as they know how, and the best can do no more."
"Truly said. And the more rude, ignorant, and selfish they are, the more need they have of gospel instruction, and the more willing should we be to break the bread of life for them. If our Master had not even 'where to lay his head,' it ill becomes us to murmur because every natural good is not spread out before us."
In this state of mind, Odell went to his new circuit. Having deposited his family, consisting of a wife and one child, in the little village of S--, with a kind brother, who offered them a home at a mere nominal board, he mounted his horse and started forth on a three weeks' tour among the members of the church to whom he was to minister, during the next twelve months, in holy things. The first preaching-place was ten miles distant, and the little meeting-house stood on the roadside, nearly a mile from any dwelling, and in an exceedingly poor district of country.
Before leaving S--, Mr. Odell made inquiries of the brother at whose house he was staying, in regard to the route he was to take, and the people among whom he was going. As to the route, all that was made satisfactory enough; but the account given of the people was not encouraging in a very high degree.
"The fact is," said the brother, rather warmly, "it's my opinion that they don't deserve to have the gospel preached among them."
To this, however, the preacher very naturally demurred, and said that he was not sent to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.
"Where will I stop to-night?" he inquired. It was Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday morning he was to preach at his first appointment.
"Well," said the brother, slowly and thoughtfully, "I can tell you where you ought to stop, but I don't know you will be so welcome there as at a poorer place. Brother Martin is better able to entertain the preachers comfortably than any one else in that section; but I believe he has never invited them home, and they have generally gone to the house of a good widow-lady, named Russell, whose barrel of meal and cruse of oil deserve never to fail. She is about the only real Christian among them."
"Is brother Martin a farmer?"
"Yes, and comfortably off; but how he ever expects to get his load of selfishness into heaven, is more than I can tell."
"You must not be uncharitable, brother," said Odell.
"I know that; but truth is truth. However, you must see and judge for yourself. I think you had better go to the house of sister Russell, who will welcome you with all her heart, and give you the best she has."
"And I want no more," said the preacher.
After getting precise directions for finding sister Russell, he