expects to get his seat at the lowest rates.  But Americans are liberal in giving.  If they contributed to the support of the Gospel, if what they gave the church was a free gift, I believe they would give with a free hand.  At all events I would like to try the experiment.  It can be no worse than it has been this year.  The trustees can have no difficulty in raising interest money from the plate collections and a special subscription.  There can be no injustice in requiring them to secure a special fund for any special expenditures.  And all the other expenditures I will provide for myself out of the free gifts of the congregation.  I am willing to run all the risks.  It may do good.  It can do the church no harm.”

A long discussion followed this proposal.

Mr. Wheaton was at first utterly opposed to the plan.  He thought it was tempting Providence to make no more adequate provision for our debts.  Six of us quietly agreed to assume the mortgage debt, that is to say to insure him that the plate collections and the ladies together would pay the interest promptly.  That changed his view.  He said that if the minister had a mind to risk his salary on such a crazy scheme, very well.  And at the last he voted for it.

Mr. Hardcap thought it was a first-rate plan.  It was noticed afterward that he moved from a plain seat in the gallery to a cushioned and carpeted seat in the center aisle.  Whether he paid any more contribution than he had before paid of pew rent, nobody but the parson knows.  But nobody suspects him of doing so.

Mrs. Potiphar thought it was horrid.  What was to prevent any common, low-born fellow, any carpenter’s son, right from his shop, coming and sitting right alongside her Lillian?  She couldn’t sanction such communist notions in the church.

Deacon Goodsole warmly favored the minister’s idea-was its most earnest advocate, and was the man who first started the plan for buying Mr. Wheaton’s acquiescence.

Mr. Line hadn’t a great deal of faith in it.  This was not the way the church used to raise money when he was a boy.  Still, he wanted to support the minister, and he wanted to have the poor reached, and he hadn’t anything to say against it.

Squire Rawlins said, “Go ahead.  The minister takes all the risk, don’t you see?  He’s a big fool in my opinion.  But there’s no law agin a man makin’ a fool of himself, ef he wants ter.”

Miss Moore organized that very night a double force to carry the plan into effect.  One was a ladies’ society to pay the interest; the other was a band of workers, young men and young women, to go out on Sunday afternoons and invite the people who now do not go anywhere to church, to come to ours.

On the final vote the plan was carried without a dissenting voice.  I beg Mrs. Potiphar’s pardon.  Her voice was heard in very decided dissent as the meeting broke up.  But as the ladies do not vote in the Calvary Presbyterian Church, her protest did not prevent the vote from being unanimous.