the lawless element, and was threatened with physical violence if he persisted in his intention of preaching. My friend described the method by which the liberty of prophesying was asserted. "He went into the pulpit, laid his revolver on the Bible- and then he preached extempore."

The manner of narration savored of the soil. The Honest Miner under such circumstances would subordinate everything to emphasis on the correct homiletical method. No matter how able the minister might be, it was evident that if he were closely confined to his notes, his delivery could not be effective.

A good woman described the way in which her minister, a young man fresh from the theological school, made one of his first parish calls. He found his parishioner, who had been extolled as one of the pillars of the church, in a state of intoxication, and he was chased out of the house and some distance down the street.

"We were sorry it happened, for it

gave him an unpleasant impression of the congregation.

You know Mr.

met with several rebuffs."

The unconventional episode was related with all the prim propriety of "Cranford."

The perfect democracy of a mining camp develops a certain naïve truth-telling, which has all the unexpectedness which belongs to the observations of a boy. There is no attempt to reduce everything to uniformity, or to prove any particular thesis. The gossip of a conventional village where people know each other too well is apt to be malicious. A creditable action is narrated, and then comes the inevitable "but." The subject of conversation falls in the estimation of the hearers with a sudden thud.

The Honest Miner does not attempt to pass final judgment or to arrange his fellow men according to any sort of classification. He speaks of them as he sees them, and so virtues and failings jostle one another and take no offense. The result is a moral inconsequence which has all the effect of studied wit. This is what delights us in the characterization of Thompson of Angel's: Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger.

As we read the line we smile, not so much at Thompson as at the society of which he was a part. We see behind him the sympathetic company at Angel's. Here was a public with whose

temper he was familiar. He could trust himself to the judgment of his peers. No misdemeanor would blind them to such virtues as he actually possessed. He could appeal to them with perfect confidence.

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice.

The Western mining camp is not primarily an educational institution, yet it has served a most important function in the making of Americans. The young man is fortunate who on leaving college can take a post-graduate course in a community where he can study sociology at first hand. He will learn many things, especially that human nature is not so simple as it seems, but that it has many "dips, spurs, and angles."

A SAINT RECANONIZED

A

LL the world loves a lover," but all the

world does not love a saint. Our hearts do not leap up when we behold a halo on the titlepage, and so the lives of the heroes of the Church are frequently neglected. When the saint has been duly canonized, that is generally the end of him in popular esteem. But sometimes the ecclesiastical and secular judgments coincide and the saint is invested with human interest.

So it has been with St. Francis of Assisi, given the highest honors in his church, he has captivated the imagination of the world. Protestants vie with Catholics in doing him honor. At no time has his name been more familiar or his legend more often repeated than in our own day. He has been recanonized.

This renewal of interest in the Franciscan legend is all the more interesting because it carries us into a region so remote from that in which we habitually dwell.

"Now it came to pass that as Francis, the servant of the Lord, was singing the praises of the Lord with joy and gladness, certain robbers fell upon him and fiercely questioned him who he was. And he answered, 'I am the herald of the King of Heaven.' And the robbers fell upon him with blows and cast him into a ditch, saying, 'Lie there, thou herald of nothing!' When they had departed Francis arose and went through the forest, singing with a loud voice the praises of the Creator."

These words take us into another world than ours. To enter that world we must not only lay aside our easily besetting sins, but our easily besetting virtues as well. We must cast aside all the prudential virtues, we must rid our minds of all prejudice in favor of scientific charity and rationalistic schemes of philanthropy, and we must disclaim personal responsibility for the progress of modern civilization. With such impedimenta the pilgrim of thought might possibly get as far back as the sixteenth century, but it would be impossible for him to penetrate into the thirteenth. He who would do so must first drink deep of Lethe. He must put out of mind those persons