28 THE FOGY DAYS AND NOW ; 



and sweetnin', lost his gauge, and was picked up by some of 

 the party in a gutter. After the return home he was dealt with 

 by the church. The good brother made an honest confession, 

 and humbly besought forgiveness for the not uncommon 

 offence; he plead in palliation for the slip, that the ice and 

 sweetnin' in the licker had fooled him, when one of the 

 breth-reri exclaimed, "Stop right thar Brother Wilson; did 

 you say they put ice in your licker ? " Turning to the other 

 breth-ren asked, " Wernt it in July we was thar?" I^rother 

 Wilson said he knowed it wer in July, but they surely put the 

 ice in the licker; the brethren looked grave, and, after mature 

 deliberation, decided to expel Brother Wilson from the 

 church, not for getting drunk, but for telling a lie and sticking 

 to it, for all the brethren knew it was cooler on the Blue 

 Ridge than it was in Augusta, and the oldest man in the 

 settlement had never seen ice in July. 



On another occasion a mountain preacher was explaining to 

 his audience that morals alone could not take a man to 

 heaven ; as he proceeded with his argument he became more 

 and more convinced of the impossibility of the thing ; sud- 

 denly paused for a moment, then raising high his brawny arm 

 brought it down with sledge-hammer force on the candle 

 board, exclaiming, "• No, no, my breth-ren, the thing can't be 

 did ; you might as well tell me that a hawk could knock feath- 

 ers out of a terrapin." 



Another, a minister, was illustrating the meekness of the 

 lamb, and made the following graphic picture : " Thar was 

 once a goat and a sheep acrossing of a log and it so happened 

 that they met right in the middle; the water was swift and 

 the log was high ; they couldn't pass one another, the log was 



