10 PREFACE 



evening, each man having one hour's time. 

 That was typical of the earlj^ founders of Sil- 

 verton. No admission was charged, and the 

 occasion was carried on with much dignity 

 until the last evening's debate when somebody 

 started something, and when it was over 

 several of the best families in town were on 

 terms unbecoming to neighbors ; but even this 

 only lasted a few months and all the differ- 

 ences of a stormy night had passed. The 

 manhood and womanhood that had brought 

 them together during the hardships and trials 

 of a pioneer life, in the covered-wagon days, 

 had brought about a brotherhood that was 

 after all too strong a bond to be broken by 

 even religious whims and differences, and they 

 were soon back together as one big family. All 

 men and women who in their higher spiritual 

 selves were even more religious in the truer 

 form than the minister that had started the 

 trouble, they were genuinely under the atmos- 

 phere and living in it that the old blind Arab 

 poet described in his verse written during 

 the eleventh century and saying, "when 

 young, my friends I would defame, if our 

 religious faiths were not t'he same, but now 



