146 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



visit to Brother Noseworthy at the town of Selma. The 

 ride did him good, and the change of air also. He was 

 bustled up by the activity of Quarterly Meeting. On the 

 25th he writes, "The Methodist Society at Selma is in a 

 much livelier state than ours, and I have had some profit- 

 able seasons, though I find too much of a narrow bigotry 

 with all." He came back to Mount Pleasant persuaded 

 that he had a call to be a Wesleyan minister in Alabama, 

 and convinced that he was to spend his life there preaching 

 and visiting. 



What happened next I know not, but I suppose that 

 the visit to Selma had quickened his senses, and showed 

 him that life in Mount Pleasant was impossible, since 

 exactly four days after this conclusion to stay in Alabama 

 for ever, he is found to have packed up all his boxes and 

 cabinets, to have been up to Dallas to say farewell to 

 the Saffolds, and to be positively on board a steamer on 

 the Alabama river, in the highest possible spirits, and 

 bound merrily for Mobile. He ate part of a splendid 

 turkey for his Christmas dinner on board the steamer, his 

 curious objection to everything which in any way sug- 

 gested the keeping of Christmas as a festival not having as 

 yet occurred to him. The voyage down the river from the 

 upper country occupied two days and a night, considerable 

 delay being caused by frequent stoppages to take in cargo, 

 until the vessel was laden almost to the water's edge with 

 bales of cotton. " I looked with pleasure on the magnificent 

 scenery of the heights. There is something," he writes, 

 " very romantic in sailing, or rather shooting, along 

 between lofty precipices of rock, crowned with woods at 

 the summit. One such strait we passed through to-day 

 (December 30) just at sunrise ; the glassy water, our 

 vessel, and everything near still involved in deepest 

 shadow ; the grey, discoloured limestone towering up on 



