THE STOVE ENGAGEMENT. 55 



been condemned to eternal punishment. But 

 he died at peace with his Maker and himself. 

 My father, his pastor, wrote the lines which 

 may be seen upon his gravestone : 



With faith and works his life did well accord, 

 He served the public while he served the Lord. 



Not many years after the declaration of doc- 

 trinal war, there arose in that old meeting- 

 house another controversy of startling propor- 

 tions, which impressed itself upon my early 

 childhood. This was the hard-fought stove 

 engagement. The self-denial exercised sixty 

 or seventy years ago for no other purpose 

 than that of escaping future punishment, in 

 going to meeting through a winter's storm, to 

 sit upon hard seats, and to kick our feet upon 

 an uncarpeted floor, the mercury sometimes 

 below zero, through the delivery of much 

 longer sermons than are inflicted upon us now, 

 cannot be appreciated by those who consider 

 it a pleasure rather than a duty to attend 

 churches where they may reclin-e on soft up- 

 holstery in a balmy furnace heat, listening to 

 discourses of moderate length and of greater 

 scope and liberality. 



Then, families were seen wending their way 



