"I should think the assumption was a safe one," said the priest, smilingly, "unless," he added on after-thought, "it be by way of a genial profanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to my soul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a long time. I daresay they're all dead." "I shall never forget that death-bed -- where I saw you first," remarked Theron, musingly. "I date from that experience a whole new life. I have been greatly struck lately, in reading our 'Northern Christian Advocate' to see in the obituary notices of prominent Methodists how over and over again it is recorded that they got religion in their youth through being frightened by some illness of their own, or some epidemic about them. The cholera year of 1832 seems to have made Methodists hand over fist. Even to this day our most successful revivalists, those who work conver- sions wholesale wherever they go, do it more by frightful pictures of hell-fire surrounding the sin- ner's death-bed than anything else. You could hear the same thing at our camp-meeting to-night, if you werethere." "There isn't so much difference as you think," said Father Forbes, dispassionately. "Your peo- ple keep examining their souls, just as children keep pulling up the bulbs they have planted to see are there any roots yet. Our people are more satisfied to leave their souls alone, once they have -356- |