200 Musings by Camp- Fire a7id Wayside 



With much earnestness he said that it was true. 

 "The very best preaching is in the country 

 churches." And yet, while this is true, it is from 

 the country pulpit that the best of the city preach- 

 ers are drafted. A professor once told his students 

 when they were called on to preach in the country, 

 to take their best sermons with them; if in the city, 

 to put on their best coats. 



My friend, Dr. Young, the good physician, 

 showed me his relics and curios. Some of them 

 one will look upon with mysterious interest, as hav- 

 ing unknown tragedies back of them. One was a 

 fusee — a "smooth-bore rifle" we used to call them — 

 which he found on the top of a mountain. It was 

 made in 1831, a flint-lock. It was loaded, the fusee 

 was sprung, but the upper jaw of the hammer and 

 the flint were gone. It lay in a natural citadel and 

 the weather-worn stock showed that it had been 

 exposed for thirty or forty years. Its owner had 

 tried to fire it before he dropped it. What tragedy 

 lay back of that old gun? 



A still more tragical relic is a chain, made of 

 hemlock-root bark, which hung over a precipice one 

 hundred and fifty feet, where it was broken. The 

 bottom of the chasm was far below the reach of the 

 fragment of the chain. The doctor thinks it was 

 made by one of the early gold prospectors who, 

 with the breaking of the chain, lost his life. It was 

 made by twisting and wrapping pieces two and 

 three feet long and joining them with loops. The 



