Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1871-12-15
THE HOOSIER
SChooIHMaSter.
BY EDWARD EGGLEsToN.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE GOoD SAMARITAN.

The Methodist Church to which
Mrs. Matilda White and Miss Nancy
! Sawyer belonged was the leading one
| in LewisbuFg, as it is in most county
seat villages in Indiana. If may be
permitted 10 express my candid and
charitable opinion of the difference
between the two women, L shall have
| to use the old Quaker locution. and
say that Miss Sawyer was a Metho-
| dist and likewise a Christian Mrs.
White was Methodist, but fear she
was not likewise
As to the first part of this assertion,
there was no room to doubt Miss. Nan
cy's piety. She could get happy in
| class-meeting (for who had better
rigEt?), and could witness a good eX-
perience in the quarterly lOve-feast.-
But it is not upon these grounds that
l base my opinion of AIiss Nancy
Do not even the Pharisees the same :?
She never dreamed that she had any
right to speak of "Christian Perfec-
| tionn which, as Mrs. PartingtOn
said of total depravity, is an excellent
doctrine if it is lived up toy; but when
a wOman's heart is full of devOut af-
fectiOns and good purposes, when her
head devises liberal and Christlike
things, when her hands are always
open to the poor and always busy with
acts of love and self-denial, and when
her feet are ever eager to run upon er-
/ rands of mercy, why, if there be any
thing worthy of being called Christian
Perfection in this world of impeTfec-
ton, | DO not know why such an one
does not possess it. What need of
analyZing her experiences IN UdcuO
to fi.d out the state of her soul?
How Miss Nancy managed to live
on her slender income and be so gene
rOus was a perpetual source of per-
pleXity to the gossips of LewisbuTg.
And now that she declared that Mrs.
Thomson and ShOcky should not re-
turn to the pOor-house there was a
general Outcry f. ON the whole Com
mittee of Intermediates that she
would bring herself to the poOr-hOuse
before she died. But Nancy Sawyer
was the richest woman in Lewisburg,
though nobody knew it, and she her.
self did not once suspect it.
How Miss Nancy and the preacher
conspired together, and how they
managed to bring Mrs. Thomson's
case up at the time Of the 4" Sacrament
tai Service " in the afternoon of that
Sunday in Lewisburg, and how the
preacher made a touching statement
of it Just before the regular 'Collec-
ton for the Poor " was taken, and
how the warm-hearted Methodists
put in dollars instead of dimes while
the Presiding Elder read those paSsa-
ges about Zaccheus and other liberal
people, and how the congregation
sang
" He dies, the Friend of Sinners Dies
more Justify than ever. after having
performed this Christian act-hOw all
this happened | can not take up the
readers time to tell. But | can assure
him that the nearly blind English wO-
man did not room with blasphemous
old Mowley any more, and that the
blue-drilling pauper frock gave way
to something better, and that grave
little Shocky even danced with de-
light, and declared that God hadn't
forgot, though he'd thought that He
had. And Mrs. Matilda White re-
marked that it was shame that the
collection for the poor at Methodist
sacramental service should be given to
woman who was a member of the
Church of England, and like as not
never sOundly converted!
And Shocky slept in his mothers
arms and prayed God not to forgot
Hannah, while ShOcky's mother knit
stockings for the store day and night,
and day and night she prayed and
hoped