listened and wondered.  By and by a man turned out of his way to ascertain the cause of the racket.  There was a black coat and vest hanging on the fence, and a professional-looking man in his shirt sleeves was smashing the meeting-house.  The rickety old steps were gone by the time this man, with open eyes and wide-open month, came to stare in speechless amazement.  Gideon couldn’t have demolished ’the altar of Baal and the grove that was by it’ with more enthusiastic energy, than did this preacher tumble into ruin his own meeting-house, wherein he had preached not twelve hours before.  Other men came, looked, laughed, and passed by.  But the builder had no time to waste on idle gossips.  Clouds of dust hovered about him, planks, boards, and timbers came tumbling down in heaps of ruin.”

“Presently there came along an eminently respectable citizen, who seldom went to church.  He stared a moment, and said, ’What in the name of goodness are you doing here?’”

“‘We are going to have a new meeting-house here,’ was the reply, as the pick-axe tore away the side of a window-frame for emphasis.”

“The neighbor laughed, ‘I guess you won’t build it with that axe,’ he said.”

“‘I confess I don’t know just exactly how it is going to be done,’ said the preacher, as he hewed away at a piece of studding, ’but in some way it is going to be done.’”

“The doubter burst into an explosion of derisive laughter and walked away.  A few paces, and he came back; walking up to Colonel Conwell he seized the axe and said, ’See here, Preacher, this is not the kind of work for a parson or a lawyer.  If you are determined to tear this old building down, hire some one to do it.  It doesn’t look right for you to be lifting and pulling here in this manner.’”

“‘We have no money to hire any one,’ was the reply, ’and the front of this structure must give way to-day, if I have to tear it down all alone.’”

“‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ persisted the wavering doubter; ’if you will let this alone, I’ll give you one hundred dollars to hire some one.’”

“Colonel Conwell tranquilly poked the axe through.’ the few remaining panes yet unbroken in the nearest window and replied, ’We would like the money, and I will take it to hire some one to help, but I shall keep right on with the work myself.’”

“‘All right,’ said the doubter; ’go ahead, if you have set your heart upon it.  You may come up to the house for the hundred dollars any time to-day.’”

“And with many a backward look the generous doubter passed on, half beginning to doubt his doubts.  Evidently, the Baptists of Lexington were beginning to do something.  It had been many a year since they had made such a noise as that in the village.  And it was a noise destined to be heard a long, long way; much farther than the doubter and a great many able scientists have supposed that sound would ‘carry.’”

“After the doubter came a good-natured man who disliked churches in general, and therefore enjoyed the fun of seeing a preacher tug and puff in the heavy work of demolition, for the many-tongued rumor by this time had noised it all around Lexington that the new preacher was tearing down the Baptist meeting-house.  He looked on until he could no longer keep his enjoyment to himself.”