Rather a strange heading! I know it; but I have lost an hour trying to think of a better; and is not society composed (figuratively speaking) of cockle, chess, and wheat? In old settled parts and in cities we see society like wheat in the bulk. The plump grain is on top, but there are cockle and chess at the bottom. On the frontier the wheat is spread on the barn floor, and the chess and cockle are more plainly seen. As the fanning-mill lets the wheat drop near it and the lighter grains fly off, so in the great fanning-mill of the world, the good are in clusters in the towns and settled country, while the cockle and chess are scattered all over the borders. Of course in screenings, there is always considerable real wheat, though the grains are[135] small. Under proper cultivation, however, these will produce good wheat. These little grains among the screenings are the children, and they are the missionaries\' hope.

In my pastoral work I have met with all kinds of humanity,—here a man living a hermit life, in a little shanty without floor or windows, his face as yellow as gold, from opium; there an old man doing chores in a camp, who had been a preacher for twenty-five years; here a graduate from an Eastern college, cashier of a bank a little while ago, now scaling lumber when not drunk; occasionally one of God\'s little ones, striving to let his light shine o\'er the bad deeds of a naughty world.

It was my custom for nearly a year to preach on a week-night in a little village near my home, sometimes to a houseful, oftener to a handful. Few or many, I noticed one man always there; no matter how stormy or how dark the night, I would find him among the first arrivals.[136] He lived farther from the meeting than I, and it was not a pleasant walk at any time. One was always liable to meet a gang of drunken river-men spoiling for a fight; and there was a trestle bridge eighty rods in length to walk over, and the ties in winter were often covered with snow and ice.

Then after reaching the schoolhouse the prospect was not enchanting; windows broken, snow on the seats, the room lighted sometimes with nothing but lanterns, one being hung under the stove-pipe. Under these circumstances I became very much interested in the young man. He never spoke unless he was spoken to, and then his answers were short, and not over bright; but as he became a regular attendant on all the means of grace,—Sunday-school, prayer-meetings, and the preaching of the Word,—I strove to bring him to a knowledge of the truth, and was much pleased one evening to see him rise for prayers. As he showed by his life and conversation[137] that he had met with a change (he had been a drunkard), he was admitted into the church, and some time after was appointed sexton.

One night, on my way to prayer-meeting, I saw a dark object near the church which looked suspicious. On investigation it proved to be our sexton, with his face terribly disfigured, and nearly blind. Some drunken ruffian had caught him coming out of the church, and, mistaking him for another man, had beaten him and left him half dead. I took the poor fellow to the saloons, to show them their work. They did not thank me for this; but we found the man, and he was "sent up" for ninety days.

Soon after this in my visits I found a new family, and I wish I could describe them. The old grandmother, weighing about two hundred pounds, was a sight,—short, stocky, with piercing eyes, and hair as white as wool. She welcomed me in when she heard that I was "the min............