Getting Ready 



years ago. It can be latched with a great effort, 

 and then it hangs tolerably secure ; but no sooner 

 is it unlatched than it subsides downwards in a 

 palsied helplessness ; its timbers all seem to fall 

 away from each other, and you have to drag it 

 groaning through the mud before you can open a 

 space sufficient to pass through. Its distemper is 

 chronic, and no one seems to know what doctor to 

 call in, or who is to pay him. Pitying this ancient 

 and decrepit servant of the village, I myself usually 

 jump over the low loose wall by the side of the 

 gate-post; and here it was that one day I nearly 

 put my foot on an open book which was lying on 

 the top, with a couple of stones on the pages to 

 keep them open at one place. I was in a hurry, 

 jumped over it, and was going on ; but, thinking it 

 an odd circumstance, I returned and looked at the 

 book. It was an old Bible, without its cover and 

 not indeed complete ; but it was open at the third 

 chapter of Nehemiah, and my eyes fell upon these 

 words : " Moreover the old gate repaired Jehoiada 

 the son of Paseah, and Meshullam the son of 

 Besodeiah ; they laid the beams thereof, and set up 

 the doors thereof, and the locks thereof, and the bars 

 thereof." There is much more to the same effect to 

 be found in this chapter; and though no ardent 

 Jehoiada, no thoroughgoing son of Besodeiah, has 

 since then appeared in our allotments, this inar- 



