Samantha among the Brethren - Volume 6
into stillness; but Sundays they might get a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.

   "The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much for 'em—the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender. It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.

   "Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who, under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls, that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the coarser, more sensual vision."

   Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help spread the Gospel."

   "And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and kep him down to it all I could, "Ralph S. Robinson has spread the Gospel over acres and acres of land, and brung in droves and droves of sinners into the fold without the help of church or steeple, let alone bells, and it seems es if he ortn't to be tortured to death now by 'em."

   "Wall," he said, "he viewed 'em as Gospel means, and he couldn't, with his present views of his duty to the Lord, omit 'em."

   Sez I, "The Lord didn't use 'em. He got along without 'em."

   "Wall," he said, "it wuz different times now."

   Sez I, "The Lord, if He wuz here to-day, Deacon Garven, if He had bent over that form racked with pain and sufferin' and that noise of any kind is murderous to, He would help him, I know He would, for He wuz good to the sick, and tender hearted always."

   "Wall,

    I

   will help him," sez Deacon Garven, "I will watch, and I will pray, and I will work for him."

   Sez I, "Will you promise me not to ring the bells to-morrow mornin'; if he gets into any sleep at all durin' the 24 hours, it is along in the mornin', and I think if we could keep him asleep, say all the forenoon, there would be a chance for him. Will you promise 
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