Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish.

LAST evening before I had found an opportunity to talk it over with Jennie, Dr. Argure and Deacon Goodsole called. I suspect the deacon's conscience had been quickened even more...

A pretty little cottage-white, with green blinds; the neatest of neat fences; a little platform in front of the sidewalk with three steps leading up to it,--a convenient method...

"My dear Jennie," said he, "there is no magic in print. Write just such an account as you wrote your mother. If you had that letter you could not do better than give me that to...

"No! Mr. Mapleson," said I, "I can do nothing more with him. So long as I had only the intellect to deal with, I thought I knew what to say and when to keep silence. But I dare...

LAST Tuesday night Jennie met me at the station. It is unusual for her to do so. The surprise was a delightful one to me. But as I sat down beside her in the basket wagon she di...

"No blunder," said Mr. Wheaton, "I left it out on purpose. I thought may be we could get him for less than fifteen hundred dollars. What do you think? Wouldn't he come on twelve...

FIVE or six weeks ago Maurice came to me in some excitement. "Mr. Laicus," said he, "is it true that ten of you gentlemen have to contribute thirty dollars a piece this year to...

"Mr. Laicus," said Mr. Gear as we came out of the meeting together, "I hope this temperance movement isn't going to end in a prayer-meeting. The praying is all very well, but I...

MR. Work has preached his last sermon. A committee has been appointed to supply the pulpit, and secure a candidate for the pastorate. I believe this sort of business is generall...

OUR Bible class at the Mill has prospered greatly. Mr. Gear was better than his word. The first Sabbath he brought in over a dozen of his young men; the half dozen who were alre...

ABOUT sixty miles north of New York city,--not as the crow flies, for of the course of that bird I have no knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief, but as the Mary...

I FOUND one evening last week, in coming home, a business-like- looking letter lying on my library table. I rarely receive letters at Wheathedge; nearly all my correspondence co...

ALL Wheathedge is in a fever of excitement. "Blessings brighten as they take their flight." We have just learned that we have enjoyed for these several years the ministry of one...

IS there any reason why Episcopalians, Lutherans and Roman Catholics should have a monopoly of Christmas? Is its glorious old patron Saint partial? Has the Christ-child no gifts...

IT is not six weeks since Maurice Mapleson preached his first sermon here, at Wheathedge, and already events prove the wisdom of our selection. I have been studying somewhat and...

I now verily believe that Jennie from the first had made up her mind that we were to settle in Wheathedge. Though I never liked the country, she did. And I now think that summer...

It was Sunday evening. Harry was asleep in his room. The baby, sung to her sweet slumbers pressed against her mother's heart, had been lain down at last in her little cradle. Je...

BUT though I have no stock in the Koniwasset Coal Company or the Newtown railroad or the Wheathedge Bank, I have some in the Calvary Presbyterian Church, and I decidedly object...

IT has been made the subject of some comment lately that Deacon Goodsole habitually absents himself from our Sabbath evening service. The pastor called the other day to confer w...

ONE needs no other evidence that Maurice Mapleson is working a wonderful transformation in this parish than is afforded by the change which has been made in the external appeara...

IT is late in the fall. The summer birds have fled southward. The summer residents have fled to their city homes. The mountains have blossomed out in all the brilliance of their...

We were at the tea-table. It is the rule of our meal hour to have the conversation one in which the children can engage-in which at all events they can take an interest. So the...

It was Sunday afternoon. I had enjoyed my usual Sunday afternoon nap, and now I was going out for my usual Sunday afternoon walk. Only this afternoon I had a purpose beside that...

DEACON Goodsole wants me to take a class in the Sabbath-school. So does Mr. Work. So I think does Jennie, though she does not say much. She only says that if I did she thinks I...

IF you had known Charlie P., and had seen his little struggle, and had felt as I did the anguish caused by his tragic death, you would not talk of moderate drinking as a remedy...

I am sitting in my library. The fire burns cheerily in the grate. A dear voice is singing sweetly by my side. For baby is restless to-night and Jennie has brought him down to ro...

WE are in the valley of humiliation. Since the church has been rejected, it has an opportunity to understand how a candidate feels when he is rejected. I am inclined on consider...

WE are in a sorry condition here at Wheathedge. The prospects are, that it will be worse before it is better. For weeks now (it seems like a year or two) we have been without th...

WHEATHEDGE is in a fever of excitement-not very agreeable excitement. Disappointment and anger are curiously commingled. Little knots of men and women gathered after church on S...

Our new pastor had preached a sermon on that unapplied passage of Scripture, Luke xiv: 12-14. It had made a great stir in our little village. Mr. Wheaton thought it was a grand...

PLACE: James Wheaton's library.--Hour: seven and a half o'clock in the evening.--Present: James Wheaton, Thomas Gear, James Goodsole, Solomon Hardcap, and John Laicus.--John Lai...

Not that he was recreant in his duty. He performed it only too well. We learned to depend on him. He suffered us to do so. It was only by a delicate irony that the prayer-meetin...

"Thank you," said Jennie. She said it softly, but her eyes said it more plainly than her voice. I had hesitated a little before I finally closed the purchase. But Jennie's look...