body.  But it was her especial delight to declaim against the Pagan notion of the immortality of the soul, and to affirm that the Bible says nothing of the immortality of the soul.  A Bro.  McPherson undertook to contest the matter with her, but, not finding the scripture he was looking for, she exclaimed with bitter and vixenish speech, “Ah!  You can’t find it!  You can’t find it!  It isn’t there!  I told you so!” And thus this couple were fast demoralizing the church, Billy Greenwell, the richest man in the church, being wholly carried away with this fanaticism.  John Brown lived half way between Ripley and Rushville, but was a member of the church at Rushville.  Bro.  Brown was a man of good sense, excellent character, and had been a member of the Legislature.  He attended our meeting at Rushville, and, in the intervals of the meeting, was full of questions concerning this heresy that had been sprung on them at Ripley.

Our meeting at Rushville came to a close.  It had been a good meeting; the church had been revived, and there had been important additions.  I took dinner with Bro.  Brown, and in the afternoon we rode toward Ripley.  On crossing the ferry at Crooked Creek, “Old Rob Burton,” the ferryman, a tall, stalwart Kentuckian, looking down on me, asked, “Are you the man that’s goin’ to preach at Ripley to-night?”

“Yes.”

“Wall, don’t you know thar’s a woman thar that’s goin’ to skin you?”

“Well, I don’t know.  We shall see how it will be?”

At Rushville I had done my best, and now, being withdrawn from the excitement of the meeting, felt exhausted; and determined not to touch any debatable question that night.  The house was crowded with eager and expectant listeners.  My fame had gone before me, and the “woman preacher” was present, ready for a fight.  But, alas!  My sermon was a bucket of cold water poured on the heads of my brethren.  At any other time it would have been accepted as a good and edifying exhortation; but now, how untimely!  The meeting was dismissed and the buzzing was as if a hive of bees had just been ready to swarm.  The woman’s disciples were jubilant; and, above the din and hurly-burly, I heard a thin, squeaking voice say, “Give that woman a Bible, and she would say more in five minutes than that man has said in his whole dis-c-o-u-rse.”  This was Billy Greenwell.

Brother Brown said nothing that night; but the next morning he said to me: 

“Bro.  B., the people were disappointed with you last night.”

“Why, Bro.  B., was it not a good sermon?”

“Yes; but it was not what the people expected.”

“Bro.  B., did the people expect me, uninvited, to pitch into a quarrel with which I have nothing whatever to do?”

“Oh, is that it?  Well, wait a little and you shall have an invitation.”