Orientally extravagant, and of more or less lawless habits.  He had commanded a cave to be secretly dug, and furnished it sumptuously, and there with his companions indulged in revelries such as the daylight of that consecrated locality had never looked upon.  How much truth there was in it all I will not pretend to say, but I seem to remember stamping over every rock that sounded hollow, to question if it were not the roof of what was once Basil’s Cave.

The sun was getting far past the meridian, and I sought a shelter under which to partake of the hermit fare I had brought with me.  Following the slope of the hill northward behind the cemetery, I found a pleasant clump of trees grouped about some rocks, disposed so as to give a seat, a table, and a shade.  I left my benediction on this pretty little natural caravansera, and a brief record on one of its white birches, hoping to visit it again on some sweet summer or autumn day.

Two scenes remained to look upon,—­the Shawshine River and the Indian Ridge.  The streamlet proved to have about the width with which it flowed through my memory.  The young men and the boys were bathing in its shallow current, or dressing and undressing upon its banks as in the days of old; the same river, only the water changed; “The same boys, only the names and the accidents of local memory different,” I whispered to my little ghost.

The Indian Ridge more than equalled what I expected of it.  It is well worth a long ride to visit.  The lofty wooded bank is a mile and a half in extent, with other ridges in its neighborhood, in general running nearly parallel with it, one of them still longer.  These singular formations are supposed to have been built up by the eddies of conflicting currents scattering sand and gravel and stones as they swept over the continent.  But I think they pleased me better when I was taught that the Indians built them; and while I thank Professor Hitchcock, I sometimes feel as if I should like to found a chair to teach the ignorance of what people do not want to know.

“Two tickets to Boston.”  I said to the man at the station.

But the little ghost whispered, “When you leave this place you leave me behind you.”

“One ticket to Boston, if you please.  Good by, little ghost.”

I believe the boy-shadow still lingers around the well-remembered scenes I traversed on that day, and that, whenever I revisit them, I shall find him again as my companion.

THE PULPIT AND THE PEW.

The priest is dead for the Protestant world.  Luther’s inkstand did not kill the devil, but it killed the priest, at least for us:  He is a loss in many respects to be regretted.  He kept alive the spirit of reverence.  He was looked up to as possessing qualities superhuman in their nature, and so was competent to be the stay of the weak and their defence against the strong.  If one end of religion is to make men happier in this world as well as in the next, mankind lost a great source of happiness when the priest was reduced to the common level of humanity, and became only a minister.  Priest, which was presbyter, corresponded to senator, and was a title to respect and honor.  Minister is but the diminutive of magister, and implies an obligation to render service.