160 OR, THE WORLHANGED. 



taken for a preacher, and would be called on to follow Brother 

 Pirkle. It was too good, and tickled me all over. I knew 

 the professor would be astonished, taken completely by sur- 

 prise, and in my imagination, I could see his eyes about the 

 size of saucers — had to pinch my thighs severely to keep from 

 laughing outright. 



Brother Pirkle finished, and turninof to me, said ; "Brother 

 Sloan, you will follow me." This shock came as a thunder- 

 bolt from a clear sky. Such a turn of affairs had never 

 entered my calculations. I half arose, completely befuddled, 

 saying, "No, sir; I — I — I — ," but the preacher paid no atten- 

 tion to my remark, and said, "let us all pray," I knelt at my seat, 

 but didn't take in much of that prayer . My great desire was 

 to escape. I twisted round to get a view of the long stejts we 

 had just come up. Every plank was packed with people, and 

 found that I would have to make a leap of at least fifteen feet 

 to clear their heads, to get to the woods. I raised up high 

 enough to peep over the pulpit to the rear, but there were 

 rows of heads. At last Brother Pirkle said amen, and arose 

 to read and announce his text. I tried to attract his attention, 

 but in vain ; my tongue seemed to be paralyzed, and I felt as 

 if what little sense I had ever claimed, had departed. I did 

 not look towards Professor Cooledge, partly from a guilty 

 conscience, and did not care to catch the expression of pity 

 and anxiety I knew to be upon his face, in my behalf. I was 

 in a predicament, and how to get out of it I could not see. In 

 my checkered life, I had faced many dilemmas and dangers. I 

 had been among wild Indians, chased on the plains by wolves 

 on a burning ship in the midst of the rolling billows, and had 

 2)assed through the terrible carnage of war. I remembered in 

 my school-boy days the relentless rod of the pedagogue, the 



