CHAPTER XIV.
"Well, doctor," said Deacon Quickset to his pastor one morning, "I hope you have persuaded that wretched shoemaker to come into the ark of safety and to lay hold of the horns of the altar." "My dear sir," said Dr.Guide to his deacon, "the conversation I had with that rather unusual character has led me to believe that he is quite as safe at present as any of the members of my own congregation." "Oh, doctor, doctor!" groaned the deacon, "that will never do! What is the church to come to if everybody is to be allowed to believe just what he wants to, and stop just when he gets ready, and not go any further unless he understands everything before him?
I don't need to tell you, a minister of the gospel and a doctor of divinity, that we have to live by faith and not by sight.

I don't have to go over all the points of belief to a man of your character to show you what a mistake you are making, thinking that way about a poor common fellow that's only got one idea in his head,--one that might be shaken out of it very easily." "Deacon," said the minister, "I am strongly of the impression that any belief of any member of my congregation could be as easily shaken as the one article of faith to which that poor fellow has bound himself.

I don't propose to disturb his mind any further.

'Milk for babes,' you know the apostle says, 'and strong meat for men.' After he has proved himself to be equal to meat, there will be ample time to experiment with some of the dry bones which you seem anxious that I should force upon him." "Dr.Guide," said the deacon, with considerable dignity, "I didn't expect this kind of talk from you.

I have been sitting under your ministrations a good many years, and, though sometimes I didn't think you were as sharp-set as you ought to be, still I knew you were a man of level head and good education and knew everything that was essential to salvation; otherwise, why did the best college of our own denomination make you a doctor of divinity?
But I've got to let out what is in my heart, doctor, and it is this, that there is no stopping-place for any one that begins to walk the straight and narrow way; he has got to keep on as long as he lives, and if he don't he is going to be crowded off to one side." "You are quite right, deacon," said the minister; "and therefore I object to putting any stumbling-blocks in any such person's way." "Do you mean to say, Dr.Guide," asked the deacon, earnestly, "that all the articles of faith that you have always taught us were essential to salvation are to be looked at as stumbling-blocks when they are offered to somebody like that poor dying sinner ?" "I mean exactly that, deacon," said the minister, "and I mean still more, and I mean to preach earnestly on the subject in a short time, and at considerable length, that they have been stumbling-blocks to a great many members of my congregation who should by this time be better men and women than they are.