He told of hardened criminals who had heard God’s voice in their dreams.  He told of children, who like little Samuel had been called by the Almighty in a voice as articulate as that of their own fathers.  He told of the authenticity of the Biblical history of Christ and of the scientific explanations of Christ’s miracles.  He told of the faith of the ancestors of the people of Lost Chief, a faith which had led them across the Atlantic and through those first terrible years on the bleak New England shores.  He concluded with a prayer for the return of the sheep to the fold, a prayer delivered with tears pouring down his weather-beaten cheeks, a prayer delivered in anguish of spirit and in a voice of heart-moving sincerity.

At the end, he sank into his chair by the table and covered his eyes with his shaking hand.  Lost Chief sat silent for a moment, then Grandma Brown said in a quavering voice, “Let us sing Rock of Ages.”  But only she knew the words, and after a single verse she stopped, in some embarrassment.

Charleton coughed, yawned and rose.  The little congregation followed him out into the yard, where horses and dogs were milling the half-melted snow into yellow muck.

“Well, Grandma,” asked Charleton as he helped the old lady into her saddle, “what did you think of the sermon?”

“A pretty good sermon!” replied Grandma.  “Made me feel like a girl again.”

“My gawd, Grandma,” exclaimed Charleton, “do you mean to say that an old Indian fighter like you swallowed that stuff!”

“I was believing that stuff before you were born, Charleton!  If Fowler is going to keep this pace up, I’ll say I’m sorry I ever called him a sissy.  What did you think of it, Peter?”

Peter was leaning thoughtfully against his horse.  “It was interesting.  Ethics, as such, are too cold to interest most folks.  So we sugar-coat ’em with flowery speech and sleight-of-hand and try to give ’em authority with a big threat.  Then some hard-head like Charleton says, because the sugar-coating is silly, that there is nothing to ethics.  Which is where he talks like a fool.”

He whistled to Sister and trotted homeward.  There was considerable elation in Doug’s cabin that evening.  The preacher said little but old Johnny was in fine fettle.

“Guess we showed ’em!” he said, frying the bacon with a skilled hand.  “I bet we had words in that sermon none of ’em ever dreamed of before.  You’d ought to use ‘gregus,’ Mr. Fowler.  It’s a hard word and so’s depone.  I told Grandma to come up Sunday and we’d have words looked out that would sure twist her gullet to say.”

Mr. Fowler was seized with a sudden coughing fit from which he merged into violent laughter.

“What did your sister say?” he asked when he found his voice.

“She told me not to go any crazier than I already was, and I deponed to her how Doug felt about me, and she went home.”