28 LETTERS FKOM THE BACKWOODS. 



the remembrance of which fills me with more grate- 

 ful feelings. 



The next day was the Sabbath, and though eighty 

 or a hundred workmen are congregated here, there 

 is no Sabbath to them except that which the lordly 

 hills have — solemn and majestic, it may be, but with 



no preacher but nature. We persuaded W d, 



tired as he was, to preach ; and word was sent round 

 to the few inhabitants. They came together in a 

 little unplastered room, and listened attentively to 

 two certainly most excellent discourses. It was 

 pleasant to keep Sabbath amid the old hills. It was 

 a beautiful day, and deep silence rested on the mount- 

 ains and forest, and the voice of prayer went up 

 with the great hymn of nature. And oh, how quietly 

 and sadly the Sabbath evening came down on that 

 lonely spot, and how brightly the great stars looked 

 with their luminous eyes over the mountain heights ! 

 My heart went back to my friends, and I lay down 

 and dreamed of those I loved. 



There was one thing, however, I did not like. The 

 agent of these iron works, a Scotchman by birth, 

 and his wife, were the only professors of religion in 



this spot, and yet he charged my friend W d for 



keeping him over the Sabbath. If two sermons 

 were not worth a day's board, he cannot value the 

 Gospel very highly. His tax for the support of reli- 

 gious services would be rather small, one would sus- 

 pect, and it was the least he could do to give the 

 man who had labored for his good and those under 

 him a free house and an open heart. I had much 



