The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-05-16
MOUNTAIN WORSHIPERS.


Meeting House.
The little log Westinghouse at the
Notch stood high on a rugged spur OF
the Great Smoky. Dense forests encom-
passed it on every hand, obscuring that
familiar picture of mountain and cloud
and cove. From its rude, glassless
windows one could look out on no dis
tant vista, save perhaps in the visionary
glories of heaven or the clma:ic->dis-
comforts of hell, according to the state of
the conscience, or perchance the liver
The sky was alOOf and limited. The
laurel tangled the aisles of the woods.
Sometime from the hard benches
weary tow-head brat might rejoice
to mark in the monOtony the frisking
of squirrel on a Dough hard
by, or a woodpecker solemnly tapping
The acorns would rattle on the roof, if
the wind stirred as if in punctuation of
the discourse. The pines, mastering
strong among the oaks, joined their
mystic threnody to the sad-voiced quir-
ing within. The frs stretched down
long, pendulous, darkling boughs and
filled the air with their balsamic fra
GRANGE. Within the house the dull light
fell over few rude benches and plat
form with a chair and table, which was
used as pulpit. Shadows of many deep,
rich tones of brown lurked among the
rafters. Here and there a cobweb,
woven to the consstence of a fabric,
swung in the air. The drone of blue
bottle, futtering in and out of the win
dow in slant of sunshine, might in
wade the reverent silence, as Brother
Jake Tobin turned the leaves to read
the chapter. Sometimes there would
sound, too, a commOtion among the
horses without, embarrassed from the
wagons and hitched to the trees; then
in more than one of the solemn faces
might be deserted an anxious perturba-
tion-not fear because of equine per
yersities, but because of the idiosyncra-
sizes of callOw human nature in the
urchins left in charge of the teams. No
one ventured to investigate, however,
and, with that worldly discomfort con-
tending with the spiritual eXaltations
they sought to foster, the rows of re-
ligionists swayed backward and forward
in rhythm to the reader voice, rising
and falling in long, billowy sweeps of
sound like the ground swell of ocean
waves.
1t was strange, looking upon their
faces, and with knowledge of the linn.
tied phases of their existence, their SIM
ilarity of experience here where a hun
dred years might come and 90, working
no change save that like the leaves,
they iluttered while in the outer air
with the spurious animation called life,
and fell in death, and made way for
new bourgeonings like unto themselves
strange to mark how they differed.
Here was a man of stern, darkly re-
ligiOus conviction, who might either
have writhed at the stake or stopped to
kindle the flames; and here was an ac-
cOuntant soul that knew only those
keen mercantile motives-the hope of
reward and the fear of hell; and here
was an enthusiast S eye, touched by the
love of God; and here was an unfinished,
hardly humanized face, that it seemed
as presumptous to claim as the expo
hent of a soul as the faces of the stupid
oxen out-of-doors. All were earnest;
many wore an expression of excited in
terest, as the details of the chapter
waxed to a climax, like the tense still
ness of a metropolitan audience before
an unimagined coup de theatre. The
men all sat on one side, chewing their
guilds; the women on the other, almost
masked by their limp sun-bonnets. The
ubiquitous baby-several of him-was
there, and more than once babbled aloud
and cried out peevishly. Only one, be.
coming uproarious, was made public
example; being quietly borne out and
deposited in the ox-wagon, at the mercy
of the urchins who presided over the
teams, while his mother creaked in
again on the tips ofdeprecating, anxious
toes, to hear the Word. atlantic
Monthly.
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