Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-02-28
NO. 81.
GALES aud Sketehes.
A SUNDAY IN LIMEBURGH.

There is but one Limeburgh, and the
Macintyres are its prophets. Gazetteer
makers will ten YOU that Limebu is a
st~village-5. 900 Inhabitants in Penn
sylvania; but the inhabitants know that
the world outside is "a very narrow rim
indeed-a mere saucer, that holds the cup
Of which they are the precious contents.
Alter you have lived there while, you
begin to ieel that the creation OF man,
the Hood, the signing OF the Declaration,
were all preparatory events, decreed by
Providence with an eye to the Lime burgh-
ers.
The town was founded in the dim ages
of American antiquity (when calashes
were worn and estates were tomahawk
clalms) by Il Maciotyre and Mscintosh.
They inter married; they have apparent
ly lived and gone ON iutermarrying ever
siuce. The first pair who built II house on
| limestone hill were Scotch Irish sandy
sklnned, hawk-taced, highly genteel
people. You may find them duplicated
now in every one ot The village shops or
houses,-a hook-nosed. pale-eyed folk.
A certain kind OF gentility and certain
kind Of piety have reproduced themselves
IRON generation to generation, in the hab-
its aud manners OF the villagers. Stfang-
always report. at first, that they have
found most refined aud godly commun-
| ty, but they presently complain Of tor
por ot BRAN, as if the air had been
Ureathed too often, aud go away as fast
| as they can.
Ga This Sunday morning, Limeburgh
| repaired, with It's customary inexorable
purpose. 10 meeting, in spite oil rising
| storm. The streets were iull of icy pud-
| dies and fierce wind was blowing down
the gorge, but the long procession paced
| sedately as usual down the road TO where
the square meeting house glared bright
yellow among the shining black trees.
A dry fine light snow was falling and lay
on the top ridges of the stubble. The
slope OF meadow IRON The road to the
| woods was "A sheet OF even whiteness, as
| the snow had begun before dawn.
Under Il dead pine tree which stood in
he meadow about a hundred feet from
the road, there lay queer oblong heap,
quite covered by snow, except for tutt
of foxv-looking cloth or fur, which
thrust itself out. People glanced curious
| Iy at it as they went by, but the Sabbath
was 90 time tor idle curiosity. The boys
looked at it, resolving to play hockey to-
| night and root it out.
The Rev. John Knapp. the young min
| ister from Cuketown, was in Limeburgh
that day, and he, too, caught a glimpse of
it, and, like the boys, had half mind to
jump the fence and TO pull it out. But he
was with Judge Macintyre's vile and
daughters, and could not go. Miss Su-
sle's rose-colored pumes blew airily
across his shoulder A strange thing
happened To him just then. Looking be-
lond the plumes at the unsightly lump,
he saw the melancholy bare woods, the
stormy sky. and on. farther and farther,
the broad, solitary mountains stretching
to the horizon. He was man easily
Impressed by sights or sounds. The vast
ness and dreaiiness about him suddenly
belilied himself aud his idle. Joking talk.
lie walked ON in silence. Dreadful fore.
es which he did not understand were
present at work about him aud pressed
him down. Was this Nature, or was it
God He ieit himself suddenly to be
weak and small. To think how awful a
thing ii was To stand up on this EARTH
alive, or 10 lie down in il,-dead For u
moment, with this electric fash of reality
upon him, ne thought he must cry out to
these people. tell them that death was
close at hand. Death and God
But he held his tongue and passed in
to the little meeting-house, and when he
was in the pulpit. read The weekly no.
lices. What else could he dop But he
did not join in the routine prayer and the
routine hymn. 1t seemed such surface
work 10 him ; this lille or death, or what
ever it was that had touched him with
out, was terrible and actual. Meanwhile,
the heap lay motionless under the pine
tree, slowly whitening-whitening.
The stoves heat the church comforta-
bly,. The elders are all out to-day,--the
!ludge and the two s,ore-keepers, and the
grocer with the rank and file between :;
tall, lean men in baggy trowers, and high
beaver hats, which they set in a row out
side OF the few doors. Their wives wear
their black silks, lately altered to suit the
fashion when Mrs. Judge Macintyre has
brought on. They eye each other slight
ly as they seat themselves, and lean over
To whisper, "Ah, II stormy Sabbath never
keeps YOU at home ~ or that 1.-THE doctor
is sure OF full pews on a bad day." and
then, sure of an approving Heaven and
II polonaise shired precisely as if it had
been done in New York, settle them
selves complacenlly to hear the sermon.
No danger of new, distlacting doctrines
there! Joshua Macintosh, ID. D.. is not
the man to admit the revolutionary ideas
which are creeping into SO many churches
now adays He takes Tor his theme THAT
lax. weak senlmenalism which under the
name of charity finds good word to say
even for the heather. and shakes hands
with the devil before it fights him" The
matrous exchange significant, solemn
glanees. Everybody knows who the doc
tor means. Young Knapp. who has the
mission church among the coal-diggers at
Coketown. is in the pulpit with hun. No
doubt he would like to get up and defend
the undignitied talks which he calls SER
mons. and his club coffee-room, where
singing aud reading the newspapers and
playing back CANNON go on every night.
He is ready enough with his tongue 1t
is well known that the young man fellow
ships with the Methodist parson and the
Papist priest at the other end of the coun-
iy-has had them both at his club to talk
to the men.