THE MINISTER'S ILLUSTRATION. 269 



Scotch, which to those who were accustomed to it was 

 exceedingly pleasant. I was a boy then, and was return- 

 ing with my father from a visit to Vermont. We stopped 

 over the Sabbath at Salem, and attended worship in the 

 neat little church of that pleasant village. There were no 

 railroads in those days. The iron horse had not yet made 

 his advent, and the scream of the steam whistle had never 

 startled the echoes that dwell among the gorges of the 

 Green Mountain State. Oh ! Progress 1 Progress ! I have 

 travelled that same route often since, more than once within 

 the year, and I flew over in an hour what was the work of 

 all that cold winter day that brought us at night to that 

 neat little village of Salem. I thought, as I dashed with a 

 rush over the road I once travelled so leisurely, how change 

 was written upon everything ; how time and progress had 

 obliterated all the old landmarks, leaving scarcely anything 

 around which memory could cling. Well 1 well I it is so 

 everywhere. All over the world, change, improvement, 

 progress are the words. The venerable minister, for his 

 locks were grey, and time had ploughed deep furrows down 

 his cheeks, and drawn palpable lines across his brow, was, 

 as my memory paints him, the personification of earnestness, 

 sincerity and truth. The text and the drift of the sermon 

 I have forgotten, save the little fragment that fixed itself in 

 my memory by the singularity of the figure by which he 

 illustrated his meaning. He was speaking of the operation 

 of the Holy Spirit upon the human heart, and how gently it 

 won men from their sinful ways. He said, ' It was not 



