To him Cynthy Ann presented the case with much trepidation.  All her hopes for this world hung upon it.  But this consideration did not greatly affect Brother Goshorn.  Hopes and joys were as nothing to him where the strictness of discipline was involved.  The Discipline meant more to a mind of his cast than the Decalogue or the Beatitudes.  He shook his head.  He did not know.  He must consult Brother Hall.  Now, Brother Hall was the young preacher traveling his second year, very young and very callow.  Ten years of the sharp attritions of a Methodist itinerant’s life would take his unworldliness out of him and develop his practical sense as no other school in the world could develop it.  But as yet Brother Hall had not rubbed off any of his sanctimoniousness, had not lost any of his belief that the universe should be governed on high general principles with no exceptions.

So when Brother Goshorn informed him that one of his members, Sister Cynthy Ann Dyke, wished to marry, and to marry a man that was a New Light, and had asked his opinion, and that he did not certainly know whether New Lights were believers or not, Brother Hall did not stop to inquire what Jonas might be personally.  He looked and felt very solemn, and said that it was a pity for a Christian to marry a New Light.  It was clearly a sin, for a New Light was an Arian.  And an Arian was just as good as an infidel.  An Arian robbed Christ of His supreme deity, and since he did not worship the Trinity in the orthodox sense he must worship a false god.  He was an idolater therefore, and it was a sin to be yoked together with such an one.

Many men more learned than the callow but pious and sincere Brother Hall have left us in print just such deductions.

When this decision was communicated to the scrupulous Cynthy Ann, she folded her hopes as one lays away the garment of a dead friend; she west to her little room and prayed; she offered a sacrifice to God not less costly than Abraham’s, and in a like sublime spirit.  She watered the plant In the old cracked blue-and-white tea-pot, she noticed that it was just about to bloom, and then she dropped one tear upon it, and because it suggested Jonas in some way, she threw it away, resolved not to have any idols in her heart.  And, doubtless, God received the sacrifice, mistaken and needless as it was, a token of the faithfulness of her heart to her duty as she understood it.

[Illustration:  CYNTHY ANN’S SACRIFICE.]

Cynthy Ann explained it all to Jonas in a severe and irrevocable way.  Jonas looked at her a moment, stunned.

“Did Brother Goshorn venture to send me any of his wisdom, in the way of advice, layin’ round loose, like counterfeit small change, cheap as dirt?”

“Well, yes,” said Cynthy Ann, hesitating.

“I’ll bet the heft of my fortin’, to be paid on receipt of the amount, that I kin tell to a T what the good Christian wanted me to do.”