288 I GO A -FISHING. 



does not often occur in the Profile House. As a general 

 rule we have a service in the large drawing-room every 

 Sunday morning. But on that day we were left to hear 

 the sermons of the mountain winds. In the afternoon 



my friend S and myself inquired about the church at 



Franconia village, which is some five miles distant down 

 the mountain, and were told that there would be a service 

 at five o'clock. So we took Jack and the buggy and went 

 down. (Did I ever tell you of Jack, and how Dupont and 

 myself bought him some years ago in Northern New 

 Hampshire, and have made all sorts of sporting expe- 

 ditions with him, and what a horse of horses he is ? If 

 not, perhaps I will tell you all that some day.) As we 

 drove out of the mountain gorge and the forest the Sab- 

 bath sunshine was making the earth to have somewhat 

 of the hues of paradise. Far away, miles on miles of 

 land slept in the golden light, and blue hills lifted their 

 foreheads to God. Angels might love earth on such a 

 day. Doubtless thus the land appeared to the Hebrew 

 prophet when he saw it from Pisgah, exceeding beautiful ; 

 and I sometimes wonder whether that vision was not 

 given him but as the prevision of that which he was to 

 see, when, turning away his longing gaze from the hills of 

 Judah, he suddenly beheld the holier hills of God in the 

 land which to him was no longer one of hope or promise. 

 We reached the little Baptist church in Franconia in 

 an hour or less. All was quiet around it, and we feared 

 there was some mistake in our information. But the 

 sound of a familiar hymn coming from the open door re- 

 assured us, and leaving Jack to stand without a halter 

 (for he resents the indignity of being fastened, but never 

 moves if you trust him to stand), we entered the little 

 building. Instead of a regular service we found a prayer- 



