less frequently receive, their hire, than the preachers of this particular faith.  Humble in habit, moderate in desire, indefatigable in well-doing, pure in practice and intention, without pretence or ostentation of any kind, they have gone freely and fearlessly into places the most remote and perilous, with an empty scrip, but with hearts filled to overflowing with love of God and good-will to men—­preaching their doctrines with a simple and an unstudied eloquence, meetly characteristic of, and well adapted to, the old groves, deep primitive forests, and rudely-barren wilds, in which it is their wont most commonly to give it utterance:  day after day, week after week, and month after month, finding them wayfarers still—­never slumbering, never reposing from the toil they have engaged in, until they have fallen, almost literally, into the narrow grave by the wayside; their resting-places unprotected by any other mausoleum or shelter than those trees which have witnessed their devotions; their names and worth unmarked by any inscription; their memories, however, closely treasured up and carefully noted among human affections, and within the bosoms of those for whom their labors have been taken; while their reward, with a high ambition cherished well in their lives, is found only in that better abode where they are promised a cessation from their labors, but where their good works still follow them.  This, without exaggeration, applicable to the profession at large, was particularly due to the individual member in question; and among the somewhat savage and always wild people whom he exhorted, Parson Witter was in many cases an object of sincere affection, and in all commanded their respect.

As might readily be expected, the whole village and as much of the surrounding country as could well be apprized of the affair were for the gathering; and Colleton, now scarcely feeling his late injuries, an early breakfast having been discussed, mounted his horse, and, under the guidance of his quondam friend Forrester, took the meandering path, or, as they phrase it in those parts, the old trace, to the place of meeting and prayer.

The sight is something goodly, as well to the man of the world as to the man of God, to behold the fairly-decked array of people, drawn from a circuit of some ten or even fifteen miles in extent, on the sabbath, neatly dressed in their choicest apparel, men and women alike well mounted, and forming numerous processions and parties, from three to five or ten in each, bending from every direction to a given point, and assembling for the purposes of devotion.  No chiming and chattering bells warn them of the day or of the duty—­no regularly-constituted and well-salaried priest—­no time-honored fabric, round which the old forefathers of the hamlet rest—­reminding them regularly of the recurring sabbath, and the sweet assemblage of their fellows.  We are to assume that the teacher is from their own impulses, and that the heart calls