THE MOSSBACK 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 MR. MOSSBACK'S VIEWS ON CERTAIN PRACTICAL 
 
 SUBJECTS, WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF 
 
 HIS VISIT TO UTOPIA 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS E. CLARK 
 
 Author of " Younc. Peoi-le's Prayer Meetings," " Danger Signals," 
 
 "The Children and the Church," "Our Business 
 
 Boys," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 D LOTHROP COMPANY 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET OPI'OSITE BROMKIELD 
 
3^ 
 
 Copyright, 1889 
 
 BY 
 
 D. LoTHROP Company. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 T T TV. can assure our readers that Mr. Mossback 
 ^ ^ began this series of letters for the Golden 
 Rule, with no idea that they would be collected into 
 a book. They were received, however, with unexpect- 
 ed favor ; they were widely quoted, and the author was 
 urged by correspondents and personal friends to bring 
 them together, where they could easily be referred to, 
 without turning the cumbersome pages of a newspaper 
 file. Mr. Mossback, being an aged and garrulous old 
 man, can say some things which neither a pastor nor 
 an editor, perhaps, would say ; for no one can really 
 get angry with a harmless old clerg^mian. At least, it 
 would seem that no one ought to get angry with him ; 
 and yet, the letters of indignant remonstrance which 
 the editor of the Golden Rule has received after pub- 
 lishing some of these letters, from persons of whom 
 
 iii 
 
IV INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Mr. Mossback had never heard, show that the gar- 
 ments of his manufacture were somewhat close-fitting. 
 If our readers will take notice, however, we think they 
 will find that our aged friend is never malicious in his 
 letters, that there is a twinkle in his eye all the time, 
 and an earnest purpose in his heart to do some good, 
 to correct some venerable blunders, and to commend 
 some unrecognized saints. 
 
 Boston, Mass., March, 1889. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 An Open Letter to Dr. Critical 
 
 P>om Mr. Mossback to his Brother . 
 
 To the Sexton .... 
 
 To the Organist .... 
 
 To the Church Architect 
 
 To the Young People of his Church 
 
 Another Letter to the Young I'eople 
 
 To the Pert " Saleslady " 
 
 To Grandfather Methuselah 
 
 To Rev. E. Respectable . 
 
 To 'J'he Right Rev. Father Necktie 
 
 To Sister Grumble 
 
 To Brother Readyvvit 
 
 To Miss Pertie Pickles . 
 
 To Miss Rapid .... 
 
 To Master Forward 
 
 To Brother Hard-up 
 
 To the Man Who " Speaks to Edification 
 
 To the Man Who Shows the Top of His Bald 
 
 Head to the Minister 
 To the Teacher Who is Habitually Absent From 
 
 His Class .... 
 
 To the Young Man at the Church Door 
 To Mr. Younghusband . 
 To Mrs. Younghusband . 
 
 PACE. 
 
 5 
 7 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 i6 
 i8 
 
 20 
 22 
 
 24 
 26 
 
 28 
 30 
 
 Z^ 
 34 
 36 
 38 
 41 
 
 42 
 
 45 
 46 
 
 48 
 51 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAdK. 
 
 To lirothcr Lon^^wind r2 
 
 To the Members of His Young People's Society 54 
 
 To Deacon Gooclenough e6 
 
 To Young Authors ^^^ 
 
 To Young Authors (concerning Available Manu- 
 script) (J2 
 
 To Young Authors (concerning Unavailable Man- 
 uscript) 64 
 
 To the Man With a Watch .... 66 
 
 To Rev. J. Lamentation 58 
 
 To Sister Patter ^i 
 
 To the Man Who Comes Late to Church . 73 
 To the Congregation (concerning the Man Who 
 
 Comes Late to Church) . . . . y^ 
 To the Church that does not Pay its Minister's 
 
 Salary Promptly 76 
 
 To Brother Driver -8 
 
 To Mrs. Shepherdess go 
 
 To the Man Who J^eeps a Diary ... 83 
 
 To the Man Who Gets Angry with the Editor . 85 
 To the Young Folks of the First Church of Cran- 
 
 berryville gj 
 
 To Sister Dorcas 01 
 
 To the Man Who does not Intend to Pay for His 
 
 Newspaper ^3 
 
 To Miss Grace Kindheart . . . , g^ 
 
 To Mrs. Attentive 06 
 
 To the Young Man Who is About to Get Engaged 99 
 To the Young Lady Who Will Soon Be Asked in 
 
 Marriage loi 
 
 To Rev. O. F. Fish ,03 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 To Brother Tightfist 
 
 To the Chiircii Committee in Search of a Pastor 
 To the Minister Who is Looking for a Parish . 
 
 PACE. 
 
 1 06 
 108 
 1 1 1 
 
 Mr. Mossback's Views on Practical Subjects. 
 
 The Book Agent 
 
 Wings J}ut no Legs . 
 
 The Buzz-Saw of Experience 
 
 Bandaging the Wrong Leg 
 
 Make the Best of Him . 
 
 Learning to Howl . 
 
 Watch the Brakes, Hold Tight Reins 
 
 The Sigher and Groaner . 
 
 Stuffing a Dead Hornet . 
 
 The Evolution of the Teakettle 
 
 The Sense of Humor 
 
 The Pompous Man . 
 
 Mean Streaks . 
 
 If 
 
 Another Kind of If . 
 
 That Embarrassing Question 
 
 " What's the Good Word ? " 
 
 Keeping the Windows Clean 
 
 True Politeness 
 
 The Anxiety Department 
 
 Make Your Wife Your Bar-Keeper 
 
 In Favor of Ruts 
 
 Monstrosities of Grace 
 
 Manhood to the Square Inch 
 
 Slamming the Door . 
 
 , Start Slow 
 
 117 
 119 
 121 
 123 
 
 125 
 126 
 
 128 
 130 
 132 
 
 ^33 
 
 135 
 
 137 
 
 138 
 140 
 
 141 
 
 143 
 144 
 
 145 
 
 147 
 149 
 
 150 
 151 
 153 
 154 
 156 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 So Like Themselves 
 Oag hy Well-Doing 
 The (Jift of Discontinuance 
 Concerning Overcoats 
 PoMteness as a National Trait 
 His Forty-Second Jiirthday 
 Fit To he Married . 
 
 Mr. Mossiuck's Visit to Utopia. 
 
 A Social Party in Utopia . 
 Election Day in Utopia . 
 Sunday Morning in Utopia 
 At Church in Utopia 
 
 I'AC.R. 
 
 160 
 163 
 
 166 
 168 
 170 
 
 177 
 180 
 18.^ 
 
 Supplement 
 
 An Open Letter From the Sexton . 
 An Open Letter F>om the Organist . 
 An Open Letter From Mr. Ammi Sleeper 
 
 189 
 192 
 
 193 
 
THE MOSSBflCK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO DR. CRITICAL. 
 
 Reverend and Esteemed Sir : 
 
 Allow me to send you a word of congratulation 
 in regard to your late truly admirable work. Your 
 argument concerning the dative case of the ob- 
 scure Greek particle over which you have been 
 burning so much midnight oil, is both convincing 
 and masterly. You can henceforth write after 
 your name, not simply the commonplace semi- 
 lunars, D. D., but the longer title, F. R. D. D. S., 
 for have you not, on the strength of the above 
 work, been elected a Fellow of the Royal Dry as 
 Dust Society ? 
 
 But with all these blushing honors thick upon 
 you, I have a word to say, though I am only plain 
 old Mr. Mossback, without even a D. D. Do 
 
 5 
 
6 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 leave a little of your critical scholarship at home, 
 aiy dear brother, when you put on your Sunday 
 coat and go into your pulpit. You will doubtless 
 need all your scholarship, I am not asking you to 
 leave that at home, but simply the undue mani- 
 festation of the critical spirit, which shone forth 
 so admirably in the afore-mentioned work on the 
 Greek particle. What is the use of telling your 
 audience that you have grave doubt about the 
 genuineness of this passage, or that the trans- 
 lators evidently got that wrong, or that the other 
 reading is plainly an interpolation, until every 
 common man and woman in your audience comes 
 to think thai he must know as much about the 
 dative case as you do in order to understand his 
 Bible } Why continually criticise the hymns that 
 people love to sing, as though they were only good 
 for Salvation Army barracks ? Above all, why 
 carry the critical spirit into the prayer-meeting ? 
 Do, dear brother, leave it outside the prayer-meet- 
 ing door, wherever else you carry it. Even if 
 some good old saint does give a wrong exegesis of 
 a passage, or if little Johnny Young does stumble 
 in his first testimony, or Sister Enthusiasm does 
 not control her feelings just as you would, why 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 7 
 
 criticise them ? Do confine these well-clevelopcd 
 critical powers of yours to the dative case of the 
 Greek, particle, and you will earn the gratitude of 
 many besides 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 You are a man after my own heart, as you well 
 know. You are my alter ego. If you are David, 
 I am Jonathan. I have heard of twins named 
 John Thomas and Thomas John. Now it is hard 
 to tell whether you are Thomas John and I John 
 Thomas, or vice versa, so exactly do we think 
 alike on all subjects, and so unalterably are we 
 both opposed to all new-fangled notions. And 
 yet, do you know, I have been a little fearful of 
 late that we might both be on the wrong track, 
 side-tracked as it were, while the world is going 
 
8 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 by at the rate of forty miles an hour. It is a very 
 unpleasant possibility to face, and I would not con- 
 fess it to anyone but yourself, but I cannot escape 
 the suggestion. I remember going to bed one 
 night in a sleeping-car, and dreaming all night 
 that I was constantly putting on the brakes ; and 
 yet, when I woke up the next morning, supposing 
 I was four hundred miles nearer Chicago, I found 
 that we were at the same old station, on a siding. 
 Is it possible that you and I have been on a siding 
 all our lives ; and even when we thought we were 
 putting on the brakes, and considered ourselves so 
 necessary to keep the train from going to destruc- 
 tion, was it a mere dream and fancy, while in real- 
 ity the train has gone on and left us without our 
 knowing it ? You know Father Mossback was 
 opposed to abolition, and also to the temperance 
 agitation, and Grandfather Mossback was bitterly 
 opposed to Sunday schools when they were first 
 started, and, as to foreign missions, he used to say 
 over and over again that " if the Lord was going 
 to convert the heathen He could do it without our 
 aid," and that he wouldn't "waste his money on 
 any such foolishness." And yet, foreign missions 
 are established and dot the world with their sta- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 9 
 
 tions, and Sunday schools are found in every 
 church, and slavery is dead, and every respectable 
 man is on the side of temperance. The train 
 moved on, and Grandfather and Father Mossback 
 were left on the siding. Is it possible, Brother 
 Mossback, that you and I are also "left" ? It is 
 a fearful possibility. As for me, I shall investi- 
 gate this matter, and, if my surmises are correct, 
 I shall take the first train for the front. As 
 brakemen, I do not think we are conspicuously 
 successful. Let us give up this occupation, and 
 hereafter help to regulate and lead, rather than to 
 hinder. 
 
 Your brother, 
 
 A. Mossback. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE SEXTON. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 There is no one whom I respect and esteem 
 more highly than yourself. I appreciate the truth 
 
lO THE MOSSIiACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 of the sentiment uttered by one of your number, 
 that " Me and the minister run this church." I 
 do not even think that the position of the personal 
 pronoun above is too emphatic. My own experi- 
 ence with men of your profession has been singu- 
 larly happy. I know, too, how many are your 
 tribulations and exasperations, from t.ie small boy 
 who dares you to put him out of the church, while 
 he is cutting up all manner of shines ; from the 
 giggling and simpering girl on the back seat, who 
 is making herself a nuisance to all about her ; 
 from the old lady wrapped up in her seal-skin, 
 who "must have the window open," and from the 
 old gentleman with the bald head who "must have 
 the window shut," at the same time. On all these 
 sources of vexation I am sure you could enlarge 
 with pathetic eloquence. Yet while recognizing 
 your many merits and the many difficulties of your 
 calling, do let me whisper in your ear, " Give us 
 more air." 
 
 It is so hard for us to realize that air is any- 
 thing, that I don't wonder that you sometimes 
 forget it ; but after all it is something. Oxygen 
 and nitrogen, when combined, do produce some- 
 thing real, and an article that is quite indispensa- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. I I 
 
 blc to every audience. We can get along with 
 poor preaching better than with poor air ; in fact, 
 when we have the latter we are usually afflicted 
 with the former. We will forgive you for almost 
 everything, if you will give us good air. You 
 need not sweep the carpets more than once in two 
 weeks ; you may take by the ear the small boy of 
 the wealthiest deacon in the church, and put him 
 out of meeting, if he is making a disturbance, and 
 we will uphold you in the act ; in fact, there is 
 nothing we will not forgive, if you will only give 
 us air. 
 
 I had intended, when I began this letter to you, 
 to ask you to leave your squeaky boots at home ; 
 not to open the windows or wander around the 
 church, to any great extent, during the most 
 impressive part of the sermon, etc. ; but I would 
 not be unreasonable, and we will simply gasp 
 for "more air." 
 
 Why should not a school for sextons be estab- 
 lished, a sort of annex to our theological semi- 
 naries, in which the constituents of air shall be 
 explained, and the vital necessity be taught of 
 having more of it in all our churches ? 
 
12 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENXE. 
 
 One of the first to subscribe to such a founda- 
 tion will be 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ORGANIST. 
 
 Dear Sir or Madam: 
 
 It is with much timidity that I take up my pen 
 to address you, for I know with what scorn I shall 
 be put down, when you have read this letter, 
 among the ignorant rabble who have no music in 
 their souls ; and it is not for me to say that I do 
 not deserve your contempt. Still, at the risk of 
 incurring your displeasure I beg you to discon- 
 tinue yoar long, "impertinent" interludes. The 
 second adjective is not original, it is Joseph Par- 
 ker's, I believe ; but I think the two ought to go 
 together, for an interlude is not apt to be imper- 
 tinent unless it ib long. Please, also, curtail that 
 fifteen minutes' "voluntary." It is, no doubt, the 
 most artistic kind of music that you give us, but 
 
THE MOSSDACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 3 
 
 wc all came to church to do something else than 
 listen to artistic instrumental music. When we 
 want some of it we will hire you to give an organ 
 concert, and pay fifty cents a ticket. But, if you 
 must play for fifteen minutes, have mercy on our 
 nerves, and do not make the organ bellow and 
 thunder so uproariously and suddenly. If you 
 have no mercy on yourself or the organ or the 
 blow-boy, remember the nerves of your audience. 
 Please, too, be kind enough to spare us the latest 
 operatic air. Some of us, to be sure, have con- 
 scientious scruples about the opera, z d perhaps 
 you thought you were doing us a kindness by 
 bringing the latest thing to church; but let us 
 assure you that, despite our scruples, we prefer to 
 hear these airs in the opera-house even, rather 
 than in the church. And, once more, when we 
 come out of church, with the sweet and quiet 
 influence of the service of God's house upon our 
 souls, do not so deafen our cars and so exasperate 
 our spirits that we shall forget even the text be- 
 fore we leave the church door. Play something 
 quiet and simple and devotional, and you will have 
 the lasting gratitude of Yours truly, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
14 THE MOSSDACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHURCH 
 
 ARCHITECT. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 If I have hesitated, as I assure you I have, to 
 send one of these open letters to such function- 
 aries as the church organist and the sexton, you 
 can imagine how much more I would shrink from 
 addressing such a dignitary as yourself. I can 
 hear you say, " Let Mr. Mossback keep in his own 
 place ; he has an affinity, perhaps, for old ruins, as 
 his name indicates, but he knows nothing about 
 the high art of modern architecture." I acknowl- 
 edge that your strictures are just. I am com- 
 pletely floored when you come to talk of fascias 
 and corbelling mouldings, of rosaces, trefoils, qua- 
 trefoils, etc. Nevertheless, I have some things to 
 say even to you. Horace Bushnell once wrote an 
 open letter to the Pope of Rome, you know ; why 
 should not I, then, write to you } 
 
 And first, let me implore you, when you build 
 your next church to remember that in such a 
 building people frequently wish to /lear what is 
 said. To speak of the auditorium is often a 
 ghastly sarcasm. It is not only a pertinent in- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 5 
 
 quiry, " How shall they hear without a preacher ? " 
 but " How shall they hear in some churches even 
 if they have a preacher ? " 
 
 A cathedral with massive pillars behind which 
 the whole Sunday school may play hide-and-go- 
 seek, with vaulted roof and darkened windows, 
 through which only a dim, religious light can 
 struggle, is all right for our Catholic neighbors. 
 It makes very little difference whether they hear 
 or not, especially as it is often all Latin, not 
 to say "all Greek," to them. But we of the Prot- 
 estant faith wish to hear. If you persist in disre- 
 garding our ears we shall be obliged to protest 
 once more. Again, I would not be unreasonable 
 in my demands, but I would mildly suggest that 
 we wish not only to hear but to breathe. You 
 have us very much at your mercy, I acknowledge, 
 but whatever you do, do not suffocate us with bad 
 air. After we have once breathed our share of 
 the air, in the church, we have no further use for 
 it, nor do we care to take this commodity at 
 second hand from some one else. Do provide 
 some escape for this old air and some way of 
 ingress for that which is new and fresh ! There 
 is plenty of it outside ; we shall rob no one else if 
 
l6 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 you will let a little into the church. Our cry to 
 you, as to the sexton, is, " Give us air ! " 
 
 If you will bear in mind that all the people 
 who enter your new church have both ears and 
 lungs, you will earn the lasting gratitude of many 
 besides Yours truly, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 
 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF 
 
 HIS CHURCH. 
 
 Dear Young Friends : 
 
 I find that the possibilities of the "don't" lit- 
 erature are not yet exhausted. A little while ago, 
 I noticed that a clergyman, in a grave charge to a 
 reverend pastor, gave wise and weighty counsel in 
 a cluster of " don'ts," so let me fall in with the 
 fashion of the day and say to you : 
 
 Don't mistake flattery for genuine and deserved 
 
 praise. 
 
 Don't, however, despise the good opinion of 
 
 wise men. 
 
THE MOSSDACK CORRKSPONDENCK. 1 7 
 
 Don't underestimate yourselves. 
 
 Don't, on the other hand, overestimate your- 
 selves or think that the world can't get along 
 without you. It existed, remember, some time 
 before you came into it. 
 
 Don't, in other words, mistake the pedestal for 
 the statue. If you are raised pretty well up in 
 the world ask yourselves whether it is your own 
 worth or your father's wealth or the position you 
 happen, by accident, to fill, that makes you promi- 
 nent. 
 
 Don't make a cloak of your modesty and diffi- 
 dence to keep you from doing a duty ; such a 
 cloak is apt to prove the shroud of many a good 
 deed. 
 
 Don't be forth-putting and obstreperous. 
 
 Don't be too familiar with those who are older 
 and wiser than yourselves ; such familiarity is the 
 kind that breeds contempt (for yourselves). The 
 advances should come from the older person. 
 
 Don't praise yourselves. The world will soon 
 find out your good points if you don't brag of 
 them. The surest way to prevent their being 
 seen is to call attention to them. 
 
 Don't forget the little proprieties of life in the 
 
l8 Tin-: MIJSSIIACK COKKI:SI'ONI)l^NCI•. 
 
 Station whicli you occupy and in your relations to 
 oil. Ts. To forj^ct them is to render yourselves 
 disagreeable. To remember them is to make 
 yourselves respected, beloved and sought after. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. MOSSDACK. 
 
 ANOTHER LETTER FROM MR. MOSS- 
 BACK TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE 
 OF HIS CHURCH. 
 
 My Dear Young Friends : 
 
 I sent you, recently, with my best wishes, some 
 "don'ts." Let me this week send you some 
 "dos." This, I think, is the more profitable 
 letter of the two, for one "do" is worth ten 
 "don'ts." 
 
 Do be natural. Even an ass looks a deal better 
 in his own skin than when he dons the lion's hide. 
 
 Do be modest. The most absurd bird on earth 
 is the turkey-cock. He never succeeded in im- 
 posing on any one but a very small child, and 
 
THE MOSSnACK COKRKSPONnENCE. IQ 
 
 even the child soon finds out that he is not so 
 formidable as he hjoks. 
 
 Do be sensible. Whenever I ^^o to Central 
 Park, I look into the monkey-house, but I should 
 dislike to live in the monkey's cage, queer as are 
 the antics of the occupants, and I should very 
 much dislike to see any of my youn<; friends liv- 
 ing with them behind the bars. 
 
 Do be cordial in your manner. A cold-blooded 
 fish is very well in the sea, or in the refrigerator, 
 but I should never think of shaking hands with it. 
 
 Do be cheerful in your demeanor. A pelican 
 in the wilderness was an excellent simile for the 
 Psalmist when he was miserable and distressed, 
 but he did not often resemble the pelican, and it 
 is unfortunate to put this bird upon one's family 
 coat-of-arms. 
 
 Do be " kindly affectioned one to another." I 
 think the English sparrow is so universally detes- 
 ted, in large part, on account of its quarrelsome 
 disposition. It is easy for the young people in 
 any family to resemble a brood of English spar- 
 rows, but it is not a disposition to be desired, and 
 I would not cultivate it. Your friend, 
 
 A. Moss BACK. 
 
20 THE MOSSIiACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TP THE PERT "SALESLADY." 
 
 My Dear Young Friend : 
 
 I know that you are very smart and attractive, 
 or, at least, I know that there are two people who 
 think so, namely, yourself and that young man 
 with the downy moustache who took you to the 
 concert last night ; but, really, I would not pre- 
 sume too much on these alleged attractions, for 
 bangs and red cheeks are not so uncommon or of 
 such excessive worth as to make up for a lack 
 of grace and gentleness and all other womanly 
 charms. You are not serving your employers 
 when you take especial pains to make yourself 
 attractive to the afore-mentioned young man, but 
 only when you make yourself useful to the cus- 
 tomer. 
 
 Now when I went into the store where you 
 serve, the other day, to buy a pair of gloves, I 
 was not the more inclined to buy when you threw 
 down half-a-dozen pairs without helping me select 
 the ones I wanted, while all the time you kept 
 chattering to the girl at the next counter concern- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 21 
 
 ing the concert, and the afore-mentioned young 
 man. Then, when I ventured to ask if those 
 gloves would wear well, you did not reassure me 
 in regard to their quality by telling me in freez- 
 ing tones that "you sold no poor gloves." 
 
 I know that I am rather a shabby old man, 
 and do not look as though I had a great deal of 
 money to invest, and I am quite well aware that 
 my moustache is not as silky or my coat as stylish 
 as are those of the young man of whom I have 
 spoken, but then, I have some claims to your 
 kindly offices as well as he. 
 
 I almost hesitate to tell you, you seem so obliv- 
 ious to the fact, but, really, you do not own the 
 whole store, or even that pair of gloves that I 
 wanted to buy. You are simply there to sell 
 goods, and not to gabble with your neighbors, or 
 to treat with lofty scorn the threadbare customer. 
 
 You will pardon an old gentleman for remind- 
 ing you of this fact, I am sure, which, if remem- 
 bered, will make you far more agreeable and 
 attractive, at least, to 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
22 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO GRANDFATHER 
 
 METHUSELAH. 
 
 Dear Grandfather : 
 
 You and I have much in common. We are 
 fond of the good old ways. We are opposed to 
 innovations, and it often seems to us that the 
 world is going to rack and ruin. But I have be- 
 gun to think of late, as I intimated the other day 
 in a letter to my brother, that perhaps, after all, 
 the trouble may be partly in us. I have noticed 
 that a deaf person often thinks that the preacher 
 mumbles his words, and does "wish people would 
 speak more distinctly" ; while a person whose eye- 
 sight is growing dim, through increasing years, is 
 sure to wish that these editors would n't print 
 their paper in such miserably small type. 
 
 My apprehension that the change for the worse 
 may be in us, and not in the hurrying world 
 around us, is increased by the fact that your 
 Grandfather Jared and his father, Mahalaleel, 
 were just as firmly convinced that they had fallen 
 upon degenerate days, and that the "good old 
 days" were back in the time of Enos and Seth 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPOXDEXCE. 2$ 
 
 and Adam. What Father Adam thought on this 
 question, I am not sure, but I am confident that 
 he must have been disgusted with the pranks of 
 Cain and Abel, and wondered what was the use 
 of boys, since he never was one himself. These 
 unanimous views of our ancestors have set me to 
 thinking, and I have almost come to the conclu- 
 sion that there never were any "good old times." 
 They are all like the Jack-o'-lantern ; when you 
 follow them up, you can never find them. 
 
 "Merrie England was a far more melancholy 
 place for the common people than modern Eng- 
 land. And "good Queen Bess" was not half as 
 worthy of the title as good Queen Victoria, and 
 the "Grand Monarque" was a most paltry and 
 contemptible fellow, on the whole. I have about 
 made up my mind to live in the present, instead 
 of the past ; to do what little I can to make the 
 passing days better, instead of groaning over the 
 departure of the "good old times." 
 
 Won't you move into the nineteenth century, 
 and take hold with me ? 
 
 Yours cordially, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
24 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO REV. E. RESPECTABLE. 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 It is said that the greatest vices are only the 
 greatest virtues perverted, and I suppose it is also 
 true that the little failings which injure your use- 
 fulness and mine are often but the perversion of 
 some otherwise admirable trait of character. 
 
 Since I am old Mr. Mossback, undoubtedly 
 your senior by many years, let me urge you to 
 make less of a virtue of your eminent respect- 
 ability. 
 
 It is a very good thing to be proper and minis- 
 terial, yes, to be eminently respectable, if we only 
 have something else to accompany our respect- 
 ability. But to let that take the place of fervor 
 and earnestness and devotion and spirituality, is 
 like putting a black coat and white choker up in 
 the pulpit, and expecting them to do the preach- 
 ing. 
 
 Eminent respectability like faith, being alone, is 
 dead. Eminent respectability never saved a soul. 
 Eminent respectability never lifted a drunkard out 
 
THE MOSSliACK CORRESPONDENCE. 2$ 
 
 of the gutter. It has often passed by on the 
 other side, but it seldom gets off of its own beast 
 and puts the wounded wayfarer in its place. 
 
 Eminent respectability cannot reach the heart 
 of a little child, cannot quiet the fluttering pulse 
 of the dying sinner, cannot bring the Magdalene 
 up to its own serene level. It is all very admira- 
 ble when mixed in due and just proportions with 
 earnest love to Christ, and unflagging devotion to 
 the souls for which Christ died, but it is a very 
 poor and barren substitute for either. A marble 
 image, spotless and flawless, is very good in an 
 art gallery, but it would be uncomfortable to have 
 such an image for one's constant companion. 
 
 I am not very good at quoting poetry, and Ten- 
 nyson's flowery verses do not fit my homely, old- 
 fashioned I'^tters very well, but it seems to me he 
 says something in disparagement of being 
 
 "Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." 
 
 Please look up that sentiment and make appli- 
 cation of it, will you not ? 
 
 Your friend and brother, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
26 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTP:R TO THE RIGHT REV. 
 FATHER NECKTIE. 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 I think you are related by marriage, are you 
 not, to Rev. Eminently Respectable, to whom I 
 wrote recently? I would not imply by the title 
 prefixed to your name that you necessarily belong 
 to the liturgical orders or that you always wear a 
 gown and bands. You sometimes belong to the 
 non-liturgical orders. You are not nearly so 
 numerous as you used to be, for there are few of 
 our profession in these days that are known only 
 by their clothes. In fact, I think sometimes, in 
 my old fogy way, that the pendulum has swung 
 too far to the other extreme, and that some of 
 our younger clergymen have shown undue anxiety 
 not to be known by their "cloth," but occasionally 
 we see one of your kind in these days. I saw 
 him get into the horse-cars the other day. I 
 should have known that he was a preacher of 
 some denomination at least two blocks away, or as 
 far as he could be seen with the naked eye. He 
 stepped daintily, so as not to soil his exquisite 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 2/ 
 
 boots. He flirted his immaculate coat-tails in a 
 peculiar professional manner, and spread them out 
 so as to take up two seats in the horse-car in- 
 stead of one, and I could see the conductor and 
 driver tip each other the wink when the car came 
 to a stand-still to receive him, as though he was 
 a familiar and amusing passenger on their route. 
 I am not very good at the dead languages in 
 these days, and I forget the Latin for "necktie," 
 or whether indeed the old Romans used such an 
 article of personal decoration, but a motto which 
 would not be inappropriate to your family coat-of- 
 arms would be : Necktie et prceterca Nihil. Any 
 such haberdashery is very poor stock in trade for 
 a minister, if he hasn't a good deal to go with it. 
 The more necktie a man displays, the more brains 
 and heart he ought to have to support it. A very 
 brainy and very earnest man can support a good 
 deal of finery, but ordinary men, like you and 
 me, should make their peculiarly ministerial garb 
 inconspicuous and modest. I forget who it was 
 who remarked that the only difference in these 
 days between a priest and a layman was that the 
 former buttoned his standing collar behind and 
 the latter in front. Let that, dear brother, not be 
 
28 THE M0SSI3ACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 the only distinction by which wc shall be known 
 to this observant world. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO SISTER GRUMBLE. 
 
 Dear Sister : 
 
 Did you ever think what a useless body you are 
 in the world? One of the strongest arguments 
 against the doctrine of evolution and the survival 
 of the fittest is that you survive end that there 
 are so many like you. The only way in which I 
 can understand your existence is on the ground 
 that some useless appendages and functions are 
 found in certain of the lower animals. They are 
 not needed now, and they are entirely useless, but 
 in some past age, in the struggle for existence, 
 these functions were of some now forgotten value, 
 and, though they are on the way to extinction, 
 they have not wholly disappeared. So it is with 
 you, I suppose. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 29 
 
 Let me ask you candidly, Have you ever made 
 any one the better or happier by your grumbling 
 and fault-finding? Does the minister preach bet- 
 ter sermons, or has he called oftener upon you, 
 since you gave him *• a piece of your mind"? 
 You know when he called the last time your first 
 words were, " Why, what a stranger you are ; I 
 thought you never were coming to see mc again." 
 And when he mildly replied that he made as 
 many pastoral calls as he could, you reminded him 
 that he had called on rich Deacon X. since he 
 had called on you. 
 
 Then you told him that your daughter didn't 
 like her Sunday school teacher, and that your 
 grown up son didn't have any attention paid him 
 by the young men of the church, and that nobody 
 noticed you when you went to church, and that 
 you thought Deacon Z. was no better than he 
 ought to be, and that the wife of the superin- 
 tendent dressed too expensively for a woman in 
 her station. 
 
 Do you really think that either you or your 
 pastor were benefited by that call ? Yes, I think 
 you may have been a means of grace to him, just 
 as a severe affliction, or a broken leg, or an attack 
 
30 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 of toothache might be, if he bore it patiently; 
 but I would not covet this means of blessing your 
 pastor and other friends, if I were you. Why 
 not change your name and nature, Sister Grum- 
 ble? 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO BROTHER READYWIT. 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 I don't suppose there is so much credit due to 
 you for doing the correct thing as some people 
 suppose, since you seem to have been born with 
 the knack, but it is none the less pleasant to have 
 you about. Some of us poor blunderers are so 
 often doing the wrong thing at the right time, 
 or the right thing at the wrong time, that it is 
 delightful to have one man in our church who 
 always seems to be able to do the right thing at 
 the right time. 
 
 I remember how skilful you are in keeping the 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 3 1 
 
 business of the church in the right channel, and 
 how, like an Indian guide in his canoe, by dipping 
 in a paddle here and a paddle there, without seem- 
 ing to do very much, you really steer between 
 Scylla and Charybdis. When the organ was 
 moved from the back to the front of the church, 
 and when the old sexton was put out, and when 
 the new ventilator was put in, it was your judi- 
 cious and thoughtful words that reconciled every- 
 body to these momentous changes, and prevented 
 a church quarrel. I remember, also, when poor, 
 stumbling John Jones said just the thing he never 
 meant to say, in the prayer-meeting, and set the 
 boys to snickering, how you got up and com- 
 mended the beautiful thought which he had in his 
 mind, but could not express, while you brought it 
 out so that all could see its beauty. I call to 
 mind how, after the meeting, you always take 
 special pains to shake hands with Mary Johnson, 
 and say a kind word to her when she has com- 
 pletely lost her courage and her memory and her 
 voice, in trying to repeat the first verse of the 
 23d Psalm. I shall not soon forget, either, the 
 evening when a crank came into our meeting, and 
 tried to prove that the earth was hollow and 
 
32 THE MOSSnACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 inhabited on the inside, how you started " Nearer, 
 My God, to Thee," and at once brought the meet- 
 ing back to its proper tone. 
 
 These are little things, perhaps, but they are 
 as well worth recording to your credit as if you 
 had conquered armies, and captured cities. What 
 is better, I believe, too, that they arc all recorded 
 in heaven. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MISS PERTIE PICKLES. 
 
 Dear Miss Pickles : 
 
 You will excuse an old gentleman like Mr. 
 Mossback, who is old enough to be your great- 
 grandfather, if he gives you a few grandfatherly 
 words of advice. Did you ever imagine how 
 much of a mistake you make in being slightly too 
 acidulous ? Not that I would have you sweetly 
 insipid, characterless and flat, but there is a happy 
 mean between molasses and vinegar, which most 
 
TiiK MossiJAcK C( h<ki:sih)M)i:nci:. i^ 
 
 people prefer as a steady diet, to either extreme 
 of sweetness or sourness. In faet, the majority 
 of mankind, if they must choose, would rather 
 have their food a little too sweet than a little too 
 sour. 
 
 Your bright speeches are quoted far and wide, 
 and your happy repartees are the pride of all your 
 friends, but there is such a thing as being too 
 sharp. According to a homely old adage, such 
 people as you are apt to cut themselves. You 
 remember that bright remark you made about old 
 Deacon Slowcoach, which so added to your repu- 
 tation as a wit, and the mirth-provoking way in 
 which you took off Parson Awkward, last sum- 
 mer, really it was very amusing ; but did you 
 know it made your best friends half afraid of you, 
 lest you should take them off in the same way ? 
 The other girls will applaud, but they will secretly 
 fear you, and the young men, while they laugh 
 uproariously at your wit, will be unapproachable 
 even in leap year. To work the old simile a little 
 harder — the young man that is on the lookout 
 for "the best girl in all the world " to sit opposite 
 to him at the table, through life, and pour out his 
 tea, will prefer to have her drop a lump of sugar 
 
34 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 into his cup, rather than a few drops of lemon- 
 juice. 
 
 If your tongue is a Damascus blade, sharpened 
 on both edges, use it sparingly and cautiously ; 
 let your raillery be good-natured ; laugh with peo- 
 ple rather than at them, and they will love you all 
 the better for it. 
 
 To put it briefly, wit and sarcasm and irony, 
 like fire, water, electricity, a hot temper, and 
 many other good things, are capital servants, but 
 very poor masters. " Better is he that ruleth his 
 spirit than he that taketh a city." 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MISS RAPID. 
 
 Dear Miss Rapid : 
 
 I understand ^\\a\. you are second cousin to 
 Miss Pertie Picklc.i, to whom I had the pleasure 
 of writing last week ; but while there are many 
 things that I like and even admire about your 
 cousin, you are utterly distasteful to me, and I 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 35 
 
 think you are no less so even to those who are 
 not so old-fogyish and antiquated as I am. Ex- 
 cuse plain words — they are needed. A " fast 
 girl " can understand no others, because the very 
 fact that she is "fast" shows that her moral sense 
 is blunted, and that mild expostulations will do 
 but little good. It is not so much that you like 
 to flirt, and be out on the street late, and talk 
 slang, and dress in a "loud" way to attract atten- 
 tion, but the sad thing about your case is that 
 these outward things show a corrupt heart. 
 
 At this time of year I sometimes buy apples 
 that are not very fair upon the outside ; they may 
 even be wizened and knurly, but if they are sweet 
 and sound at the core, I do not greatly object, but 
 when I see specks on the outside that indicate 
 that all under the skin is decayed, I do not ask 
 my grocer to send home any of these apples. 
 
 With all seriousness and solicitude, my dear 
 Miss Rapid, let me say to you that you are sell- 
 ing your birthright very cheap. When for a few 
 "good times" you cast a suspicion upon your 
 character, you get even less than Esau got for 
 his. A wilted violet is worth very little ; a bedrag- 
 gled rose is not sought after; if the bloom is 
 
36 THE MOSSIJACK CORRESPOXDExVCE. 
 
 brushed off the peach, it cannot be restored. You 
 may say that you mean no harm, and that you 
 do nothing wrong. Ah, but you do something 
 wrong ! No Newgate crime, perhaps ; no specific 
 violation of the Ten Commandments, possibly, 
 can be charged against you, but you are lowering 
 with every "fast" step and "loud" action the 
 respect of men for womankind. You are not sin- 
 ning against your own soul only, but against all 
 your sisterhood, and, in fact, all the brotherhood 
 as well. There is no need of this alternative, but 
 it would be a great deal better for you to follow 
 in the footsteps of Miss Prim, or Miss Prude, or 
 Miss Particular, than any longer to bear the name 
 or fame of Miss Rapid. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MASTER FORWARD. 
 
 Dear Sonny : 
 
 I am sorry that there is such a misapprehension 
 on your part concerning your own age. While 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 3/ 
 
 you look like a boy, you act like an undergrown 
 man. You have an opinion, which you are always 
 ready to express, on every subject under the 
 heavens. Whether it is the nebular hypothesis, 
 or the socialistic theories of Henry George, or 
 the relative value of razors, or the latest ballet, 
 you have your ever-ready opinion. You never 
 were a little boy, in your own estimation, you 
 never seem to have had a weakness for marbles 
 and tops, and as for the time when you had a 
 piece of chalk and a sling and an apple-core and a 
 few shingle-nails and a broken jackknife in your 
 pocket, I can hardly imagine it. But, do you 
 know, I do not like you nearly so well as the little 
 boy whom, very likely, you look down upon with 
 much pitying contempt. I like him better, even 
 if he is sometimes noisy and boisterous, and if he 
 knows far less than you do about socialism and 
 evolution and the latest divorce scandal. I would 
 like him better, even if he had a torn jacket and 
 a dirty face, than you with a swollow-tail and 
 beaver and a big, silver-headed cane. 
 
 Did you ever think that God never makes pre- 
 cosities } He never made a four-year-old colt in 
 five minutes. He never intended that there 
 
38 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 should be a man until there had first been a boy, 
 except in the case of Adam, and I think Adam 
 must have missed a great deal in not having a 
 chance to be a boy. 
 
 There is a great difference between being 
 manly and mannisJi. A manly boy is the joy of 
 my heart ; a mannish boy is an eyesore and an 
 offence. In order to become manly, you must 
 first get over being mannish. Perhaps you think 
 this is only the opinion of an old fogy, named 
 Mossback, but ask any sensible man about it, and 
 see if he does not confirm the words of 
 
 Your old friend, 
 
 A. Mossback. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO BROTHER HARD -UP. 
 
 Dear Mr. Hard-up : 
 
 I do not think you understand how much of 
 a hindrance you frequently are to the cause of 
 religion. Your perennial and perpetual shortness 
 of cash would be pitiable if only you were con- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENXE. 39 
 
 cerned, but when the cause of the Redeemer suf- 
 fers thereby, your miserliness assumes ahnost the 
 guise of a crime. I used to think when you were 
 young, that your pinching economy had some 
 excuse, and that really you were obliged to live 
 as a niggard ; but I cannot see that you are any 
 more generous, now that your possessions foot up 
 a round hundred thousand. Your minister always 
 hesitates to start any project in the parish that 
 requires money, for he knows that Bro. Hard-up 
 can never be induced to favor it, and his opposi- 
 tion will affect a score of others ; and so the 
 pulpit cushion is frayed, and the curtains behind 
 the pulpit are ragged and faded, and the organ is 
 out of tune, and the carpet is worn out, and 
 things generally have a shiftless and unkempt 
 appearance. The missionary contribution is a 
 mere apology for a collection, the minister is half- 
 starved, and religion, as exhibited in your church, 
 is becoming a mockery and reproach. 
 
 Just open your heart and your pocket-book, 
 Brother Hard-up, and you will find a wonderful 
 change for the better. Your generosity will stim- 
 ulate others to give more, and the whole church 
 will assume a different aspect in the eyes of the 
 
40 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 outside community. Every one will see that 
 religion means something to you, that it is not 
 simply a prayer-meeting exhortation. And you 
 have no idea how much happier you will be your- 
 self. I used to know of a miserly boy away at 
 school, who frequently had a barrel of apples sent 
 him by his parents. In order to save them, he 
 always ate the half-decayed apples first, and saved 
 the good ones for the future. The consequence 
 was that he was always eating specked fruit. I 
 think you have been doing the same thing all 
 your life. You have been so anxious to save 
 everything that you have always been eating the 
 specked apples. Do try the best fruit which life 
 has to offer before you die. You will find it by 
 giving away some of your surplus apples, and not 
 by saving them all for the ungrateful relatives 
 who will quarrel over them when you are dead. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 4I 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAN WHO 
 "SPEAKS TO EDIFICATION." 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 You may think from my name and generally 
 ancient flavor, as revealed by my previous letters, 
 that I will be your stanch defender. You think, 
 perhaps, that I have no sympathy with the new- 
 fangled ideas about brevity and pithiness in the 
 prayer-meeting, but you are very much mistaken. 
 I have seen the error of my ways, and no longer 
 value a prayer-meeting utterance according to its 
 length and prosiness. In fact, I cannot approve 
 of you, for the following reasons : When you 
 undertake to "edify" the brethren, you want at 
 least ten minutes to do it in ; thus you take seven 
 minutes that belong to the other brethren and 
 sisters. It is not a sufficient excuse for you to 
 say that they will not take the minutes, and that 
 you must "occupy the time." You and the other 
 "edifyers" are responsible for there being so much 
 spare time in the prayer-meeting to occupy. You 
 can't perform another's duty by occupying his 
 time, and all your brothers and sisters have a duty 
 
42 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 in the prayer-meeting as well as yourself. Again 
 I cannot approve of you because you have totally 
 misconceived the object of a prayer-meeting. It 
 is not to give instruction, but to impart spiritual 
 warmth. If you want to impart instruction get a 
 call to some church, or hire a hall, or take a Sun- 
 day school class. You will have ample opportu- 
 nity then to exercise your gifts, but do spare us in 
 the prayer-meeting ; for, in the ordinary ten min- 
 utes harangue, there is about as much life-giving, 
 spiritual warmth as there is in the north side of 
 an iceberg. Pardon this plain admonition, and 
 believe me 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAN WHO 
 
 PRESENTS THE TOP OF HIS BALD 
 
 HEAD TO THE MINISTER. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Perhaps you are not aware that there is usually 
 one of you in every audience. Sometimes there 
 are several of you, but rarely is an audience so 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 43 
 
 fortunate as not to contain one of your brother- 
 hood. It may not be strictly in accordance with 
 truth to imply that your head is always bald, but 
 it frequently is, but even if it is well covered with 
 a luxurious capillary growth, it is not an inspiring 
 part of your anatomy to present to the minister. 
 
 You have put your head forward on the seat, I 
 know, to indulge in quiet meditation upon the 
 truth ; far be it from me even to intimate that you 
 ever indulge in a furtive nap while your head is 
 thus bowed so reverently ; of course you do not ; 
 it is not on this ground that I would think of 
 sending you this friendly note. But did you ever 
 think how very little expression there is in the 
 top of your head.? Really, it aids your pastor 
 exceedingly little to gaze down upon that portion 
 of your skull. He is glad to know, undoubtedly, 
 that you have a well-developed cerebrum and cere- 
 bellum, and would be particularly glad to see that 
 your bump of benevolence was large and promi- 
 nent, but he is hardly near enough to you to 
 observe these things, and he gains no other in- 
 formation from what he sees. 
 
 Now if he saw your eyes fixed steadily upon 
 him, it would help him wonderfully, and when they 
 
44 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 kindled with a recognition of the greatness or 
 beauty of his theme, he, too, would kindle and 
 give you back more than he received. If you 
 even turned sideways and presented your ear, 
 though it is not so expressive, yet it would encour- 
 age him with the thought that you were "drinking 
 in " the message ; but God did not make the top 
 of your head to see with or hear with. You 
 surely would not go into your pastor's parlor, and 
 while he was talking with you, bow before him in 
 such an attitude, and I can assure you he asks for 
 no such reverential posture while he is preaching 
 to you. Suppose all the congregation should do 
 the same, you can easily imagine that he would 
 soon send in his resignation. But you do not 
 wish him to do this, I am sure. You do wish him 
 to preach with power and earnestness. Then 
 help him to do this by keeping ymr eyes fixed up- 
 on him during the sermon. This, at least, is the 
 advice of 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 45 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE TEACH I<:R 
 
 WHO IS HAHITUALLY ABSENT 
 
 FROM HIS CLASS. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 You have been absent from your Sunday 
 school class many times during the past fifty-two 
 weeks. If you had only been absent once or 
 twice, or if you had made a strenuous effort to 
 provide a substitute when absent, I would have no 
 message to send you ; but you are one of those 
 teachers who come when you feel like it and stay 
 away when you feel like it, and never offer to 
 resign so that a more faithful man may be found 
 to take your place. 
 
 You are a tribulation to the superintendent, and 
 a rock of offence to the school, and a stumbling- 
 block to every young Christian. I speak strongly, 
 for you are a hard case, and soft words would be 
 wasted on you. I am forced to believe from your 
 actions that no motive su£ ciently high influences 
 you as a teacher. You are not thus spasmodic 
 and uncertain in your business. You are found 
 at your store promptly Monday morning and 
 every morning. You are rarely afflicted with a 
 
46 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 cold SO grievous that you cannot make a day's 
 wages. What, then, can we conclude, except that 
 the inducement is not strong enough to bring you 
 regularly to Sunday school ? You will do more 
 for money than you will for the love of the Lord 
 and the young people whom He has given you to 
 look after in your class. You care more for mam- 
 mon than for God. You have no more right to 
 be absent from your class than the minister has to 
 be absent from his pulpit Sunday morning. The 
 fact that he receives a salary and you do not has 
 nothing to do with the case. When you took the 
 class you virtually agreed to teach it, not once in 
 a while but every Sunday. I have no patience 
 with you ; but, if you think I have expressed my- 
 self too harshly, you can lay it all to the old fogy- 
 ism of Yours truly, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE YOUNG MAN 
 AT THE CHURCH DOOR. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I hardly think you can understand the light in 
 which you are regarded by others, or you would 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 47 
 
 not so persistently take up your position as sen- 
 tinel at the outer gate of Zion. I often wonder 
 if the dude or the flashily dressed woman know 
 how they really look to others. I cannot be- 
 lieve that they do, for no person willingly makes 
 himself ridiculous. So I cannot think that you 
 know what the congregation thinks of you when 
 it files past you Sunday evening, after you have 
 taken up your favorite position near the church 
 porch. To be sure, the Psalmist implies that '• it 
 is better to be a door-keeper in the house of the 
 Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness ;" 
 but he had no reference to such as you. The sex- 
 ton can keep the door of the house of the Lord 
 without your help ; and you are not only making 
 yourself ridiculous, but also are an intolerable nui- 
 sance to all about you. Your motive is perfectly 
 transparent. You do not come to listen to the 
 sermon, or to engage in the worship, but to ogle 
 the girls. If this is not your object then a great 
 many others besides myself are mistaken in your 
 motives. The young ladies have to run the gaunt- 
 let of your impertinent eyes, frequently as they 
 come in, and always as they go out. You and 
 your companions range yourselves at the door, m 
 
48 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 two files, through which people have to pass, as 
 though you were the guards of honor at a military 
 funeral ; but if you could hear the disgust which 
 every sensible girl expresses at such a perform- 
 ance, you would not repeat it. Let me assure 
 you your motive is entirely transparent to every 
 one. You are found out. When next you are 
 tempted to stand at the church door to stare at 
 the girls, let me condense my advice into one ner- 
 vous monosyllable, ^^ Donty 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MR. YOUNGHUSBAND. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 When you brought your charming young wife 
 to our sleepy old town and settled down in our 
 midst, did you know how much new life and vigor 
 you brought with you } No, I do not think you 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 49 
 
 will ever know all the good you did, or the cour- 
 age which you gave to your old pastor and friend 
 who now writes to you. To tell you the truth, I 
 was getting pretty well discouraged. The young 
 people all seemed to be moving away, and none 
 came to our town to take their places. Old Dea. 
 Standby had just died, and rich Mrs. Dowager, 
 who used to contribute a hundred dollars a year 
 to my salary, went back to the city to live, and I 
 had begun to think that I had better take my 
 place among the supernumeraries. Just then you 
 came. The first evening you were in town hap- 
 pened to be our prayer-meeting evening, and you 
 and Mrs. Younghusband were there, in spite of 
 the fact that we all knew you were tired out with 
 moving. Moreover, you said a few words in that 
 first meeting, and told us how glad you were to 
 find yourself among Christian friends at once. 
 How our hearts did warm to you ! After the 
 meeting, too, you did not grab your hat and bolt 
 for the door, as though all the rest of us were 
 pickpockets, but you waited to shake hands with 
 some of us, and told me your name, and asked the 
 sexton for a pew, and said you both meant to get 
 your church letters in season to unite with us at 
 
50 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 the next communion. Well, from that day to this, 
 you have carried out the promise of that first 
 meeting. You have never sulked, or stood upon 
 your dignity, or complained that ''people in this 
 church were so unsocial," or growled that you 
 "never could get acquainted," and that you often 
 wished you were "back in the old church." You 
 took a class in the Sunday school just as soon as 
 you were asked, and at the next election became 
 chairman of the Lookout Committee of the young 
 people's society, and from that day to this, the 
 church has taken on such new vigor, that we find 
 we can get along even without Dea. Standby and 
 Mrs. Dowager. That half-written letter of resig- 
 nation, which had lain in my desk for six months, 
 was torn up, and I have never since thought of 
 re-writing it. May your tribe increase, my dear 
 brother, until you shall have a representative in 
 every church. You will never cease to have the 
 prayers and blessings of 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENXE. 5 1 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MRS. YOUNGHUSBAND. 
 
 My Dear Madame : 
 
 Recently I sent a communication to your good 
 husband, but I was not unmindful of the fact that 
 to you quite as much as to him was due the rare 
 blessing which came to our church with your arri- 
 val. That first evening that you were in our vil- 
 lage you did not say : " Now, John Younghus- 
 band, you shall not go to that pokey old prayer- 
 meeting. Here we are strangers with the dust of 
 moving hardly washed off our faces. Besides, we 
 have been married scarcely two weeks, and we 
 ought to stay at home to receive callers." But 
 you said (for your good husband told me all about 
 it afterwards), " Come, John, let us go to prayer- 
 meeting, and show our colors the first day we are 
 in town, and get acquainted with the good people 
 of the church." 
 
 Then when Sunday came, John was half in- 
 clined to wait until somebody invited you both to 
 
 go to Sunday school ; but in your cheery, com- 
 mon-sense way, you started off as though there 
 
52 THE MOSSliACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 was but one possible thing to do on Sunday after- 
 noon and that was to go to Sunday school. John 
 was ashamed to enter a demurrer, but went with 
 you as a good husband should. 
 
 Then, when the first baby came, instead of 
 keeping Mr. Younghusband at home from Sunday 
 school and prayer-meeting to sit with you, you 
 used to say : *' Now, John, I want to hear all 
 about the prayer-meeting and my Sunday school 
 class every week, and you must never miss a 
 meeting until I can leave the baby and go with 
 you again." 
 
 Oh, I have found you out, Mrs. Younghusband, 
 and though you are inclined to lay all the credit 
 for the help that has recently come to the church 
 from your family at John's door, he knows better 
 and so do I. Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO BRO. LONGWIND. 
 
 Dear Brother Longwind : 
 
 I esteem you as one of the salt of the earth. 
 If there is any one in all my parish who keeps his 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 53 
 
 lamp trimmed and burning it is yourself. Your 
 life is above reproach, your conduct is most exem- 
 plary, your faithfulness to every duty is unques- 
 tioned. You are the most fluent and gifted man 
 in the church, and, as is often remarked, you can 
 preach better than the minister himself. But I 
 have somewhat against you, and that is, to be 
 very frank, my dear brother, you do talk uncon- 
 scionably long in the prayer-meeting. You talk 
 well, I admit, and even eloquently, but none the 
 less you are killing our meetings. You remem- 
 ber the subject of our last meeting was "Faith," 
 and you went over the whole ground, giving us a 
 review of the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
 a dissertation on Paul's definition of faith, with a 
 side glance at Calvin, Luther and Wesley, a 
 squint at Schleiermacher, a scathing denunciation 
 of the Sabellian view, and an ample quotation 
 from Tennyson. It was all very beautiful, but all 
 very much out of place. If I know anything 
 about a prayer-meeting, its object is to give every 
 member of the church family assembled together 
 an opportunity to talk over one with another, mat- 
 ters of common interest, and especially to talk of 
 their love for the Elder Brother and His love for 
 
54 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 them ; and it is about as inappropriate for you to 
 make a twenty-minute speech there as in a neigh- 
 bor's parlor, where a few of you might be assem- 
 bled together. Besides, there was no time, after 
 you got through, either for farmer Rustic or for 
 John Newbegin, who had the first words of con- 
 fession trembling on his lips, and who would have 
 been greatly helped by participation in that meet- 
 ing. However, my dear brother, I am convinced 
 that it was simply forgetfulness on your part of 
 the true object of a prayer-meeting, and that you 
 will take in the same spirit in which it is written 
 this letter from 
 
 Your old friend and pastor, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OF HIS YOUNG 
 
 PEOPLE'S SOCIETY. 
 
 My Dear Friends : 
 
 I am getting to be an old man, but I hope I 
 shall always have a young heart. In fact, if I 
 must choose I would far rather be an old man 
 with a young heart than a young man with an old 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 55 
 
 heart, and I am glad to tell you that one of the 
 things that has kept my heart young and warm 
 has been our Society of Christian Endeavor. 
 
 In the first place, I have always known that I 
 was welcome to your meetings. The way you 
 crowd around me when I step into the door shows 
 me how you feel, and I did not need that Rogers' 
 group which you gave me at Christmas time to 
 remind me of your love, though it was a very 
 pleasant token to receive. I have never found it 
 necessary to preserve my ministerial dignity by 
 holding aloof from you, nor have I ever had to 
 scold you or remind you of the allegiance you 
 owe to the church, for you understand as well as 
 I do that this allegiance is a settled and essential 
 thing in a Society of Christian Endeavor. There 
 is one meeting in the course of the week that I 
 feel perfectly safe about, and that is the meeting 
 which our society conducts. However others fail, 
 I know that this will be fully attended and well 
 supported. Then, as to help in all church work, 
 I have never had to ask you twice. Is there a 
 new family with young people to be visited.? 
 The calling committee is all ready to do it. Is 
 there some special music to be provided, the 
 
56 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 music committee is for just that purpose. Or 
 flowers for the pulpit, why, there is the flower 
 committee. Or does the Sunday school need a 
 little aid, the Sunday-school committee is always 
 saying, " Give us something to do," so, of course, 
 I apply to thern. Or is there some peculiarly 
 delicate matter among the young people to be 
 adjusted, the only thing necessary is to call to- 
 gether "my cabinet, " the lookout committee, and 
 the matter is soon straightened out. 
 
 I could wish for each of my brethren in the 
 ministry no greater blessing than just such a 
 loyal, devoted band of young Christians to stay 
 up his hands. May the time soon come when all 
 churches shall have them ! 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO DEACON GOODENOUGH. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 Yes, I have found you out. You did your best 
 to keep it from me, I know, but your old pastor 
 was too sharp for you. You didn't let your right 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 57 
 
 hand know what your left hand did, but you 
 can't prevent the beams of a candle shining out, 
 even in this naughty world, unless you snuff it 
 out. This was the way I found you out : 
 
 You see, last holiday time, I felt that I ought 
 to make some calls among my poorer parish- 
 ioners. So on the 26th of December, I hitched 
 up old Dobbin and started out. The first one I 
 visited was Widow Doleful. She usually greets 
 me with a long face and the customary phrase, 
 "why, what a stranger you be." But I was sur- 
 prised to see that she forgot it this time, and with 
 her face all radiant with smiles, she took me into 
 the pantry and showed me a bushel of potatoes 
 and a half barrel of apples and a whole barrel of 
 flour from Dea. Goodenough. 
 
 Then I went on to the house of poor John 
 Careless. He is always getting into trouble and 
 meeting with some sort of accident. The week 
 before he had almost cut off his foot while chop- 
 ping wood. I was surprised to see him hopping 
 about quite nimbly on a pair of fine, eavsy 
 crutches. "Oh," said he when I asked him 
 about it, " they came from Dea. Goodenough — a 
 Christmas present, you know." 
 
58 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 My next call was on Peter Poverty's family. 
 Poor fellow, he is drinking himself into the grave, 
 and his wife and children have to buy their flour 
 by the pound and their coal by the bushel. But 
 actually Mrs. Poverty had a whole ton in her bin, 
 and she looked so cheerful when she said, " It's a 
 Christmas present from Dea. Goodenough," that 
 it would have done you good to see her. She did 
 not say so, but I know she thought that Peter 
 couldn't very well drink up that ton of coal 
 any way. 
 
 I only made one more call that afternoon, and 
 that was on Mr. and Mrs. Quiverfull. I had been 
 wondering how in the world all the little Quiver- 
 fulls could have had any Christmas present, for I 
 knew Mr. Q. only earned ten dollars a week. 
 
 But I had not reached the outer threshold 
 when the youngest pair of twins came running 
 to me, each holding a big doll baby and cry- 
 ing out, " Oh, Mr. Mossback, see what Dea. 
 Goodenough gave us for Christmas presents." 
 
 Now I can hear you say as you throw down 
 the book which you hold, after reading this letter, 
 " Oh, pshaw ! that was nothing. It wasn't worth 
 speaking of." But I am rather an obstinate old 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 59 
 
 parson, and I insist that it was somcthin;^^ and 
 something unusual. You didn't order twenty fat 
 turkeys to be sent to each of the men with fami- 
 lies connected with your woollen mill, or a ton of 
 coal to a dozen poor families, but you found out 
 what each one most needed and sent that. You 
 gave something besides turkeys and coal and 
 money. You gave time and thought and some- 
 thing of yourself with every gift, and. though I 
 know it will make you blush, I am going to tell 
 all the readers of this correspondence that I 
 believe that that blessed verse in the twenty-fifth 
 chapter of Mathew, which begins with *' inas- 
 much," applies to you, every word of it. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO YOUNG AUTHORS. 
 
 My Dear Friends : 
 
 For many years, I have had more or less to do 
 with editors and publishers, and, perhaps, can 
 
60 THE MOSSIiACK CORRESrONDKNXE. 
 
 give you some information concerning them that 
 will not come amiss. I used to suppose, when I 
 first sent my lucubrations to the papers, that the 
 editor was a high and miglity authority, a sort of 
 Olympian Jove of letters, who hurled his thunder- 
 bolts or deigned graciously to smile on his humble 
 subjects, as the humor siezed him. Then, as my 
 poor little effusions began to come back with the 
 stereotyped phrase which I learned absolutely to 
 loathe, "Declined with thanks," I made up my 
 mind that this editorial Jove was very free with 
 his thunderbolts and very sparing of his smiles. 
 But I know more on this subject than I used to 
 know. In the first place, I have learned that 
 there are at least a hundred thousand young 
 people aflflicted with the CacoetJics Scribcndi a. 
 good deal as I was, and that it made little differ- 
 ence to the editor if I did get angry and vow that 
 I would never have anything more to do with — 
 well, we will call the paper — T/ie Silver Measure, 
 since he could at once fall back on the other nine- 
 ty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 young authors of the country. I next learned 
 that this mysterious editor who always spoke of 
 himself as "we," as though he were big enough 
 
TlIK MOSSIJACK C()KKr.SI»()\nKNCK. 6l 
 
 for at least half a dozen, was a man with occa- 
 sional estimable qualities, after all, sometimes 
 even gentle and mild-mannered, but with one 
 supreme purpose, — to ii.ake his paper as bright 
 and interesting and readable and useful as pos- 
 sible. If he was the successful editor of a daily 
 paper, he was sure to have a " nose for news," as 
 the phrase goes, and, if his was a weekly paper, 
 he had a keen eye for what was "available." I 
 soon learned that that one very elastic word, 
 available, explained why I received so many fat 
 letters bearing the fatal words, "Declined with 
 thanks." I learned also that he scanned every- 
 thing that came to his desk very carefully, hoping 
 to find indications of the coming poet or the great 
 American novelist, and that, though disappointed 
 a thousand times, he would return to the search as 
 zealously as ever. At last I began to learn what 
 he considered "available" and what "unavaila- 
 ble ; " about this I will tell you in another letter. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
62 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO YOUNG AUTHORS. 
 
 Concerning Available Manuscripts. 
 My Dear Friends : 
 
 I suppose every editor has his own views as 
 to what constitutes the "available" article, and 
 what is available for one paper may be far from 
 available for another ; and what may be available 
 at one time may be quite out of the question at 
 another, even for the same paper, if the editor has 
 been surfeited, as very often he is, with articles 
 on the same subject. But here are some general 
 suggestions concerning the available manuscript : 
 
 1. It is written on one side of the sheet. 
 
 2. It is not rolled, but folded. 
 
 3. It is not written on scraps and odds and 
 ends of paper and backs of envelopes. One 
 ought to be at least as well known as Alexan- 
 der Pope before he follows his example in this 
 respect. Very fair paper costs only ten cents a 
 pound. One might better economize on bent 
 pins and apple-cores. 
 
 4. The available manuscript is much more 
 often prose than poetry, but if it is alleged poe- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 63 
 
 try, good isn't compelled to rhyme with dude, or 
 love with grave, and it doesn't go limping along 
 on several different kinds of disabled feet. 
 
 5. The available manuscript stops when it is 
 finished, like a good preacher. If it is for most 
 weekly papers it is usually not over eight hun- 
 dred or one thousand words in length. 
 
 6. The available manuscript does not use two 
 galleys to convey a stickful of meaning. 
 
 7. The available manuscript is very shy of 
 such subjects as spring, summer, autumn and win- 
 ter, and the beautiful snow and the fading leaf. 
 
 8. The available manuscript has not very 
 much to say about Adam and Eve, but a good 
 deal to say about their descendants of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 9. The available manuscript, if from a young 
 and inexperienced author, is not usually accom- 
 panied by an imperative demand for payment. 
 
 In conclusion, if you have something important 
 that needs to be said, or if you have a new way 
 of putting an old truth, by all means let the edi- 
 tor have it, and it will doubtless be found avail- 
 able ; but if you only want some good practice, 
 write out what you have to say in a good, round, 
 
64 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 bold hand, on a fair quality of commercial note- 
 paper, look carefully after the spelling and punctu- 
 ation, read it over critically to see that there are 
 no mistakes, and then — drop it in your waste- 
 basket, which probably is not nearly as full as the 
 editor's. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO YOUNG AUTHORS. 
 
 Co7icerning Unavailable Manuscripts. 
 My Dear Friends : 
 
 I said in my last that I would tell you what I 
 knew about the "unavailable manuscript." The 
 unavailable manuscript which is ''returned with 
 thanks " is often written on both sides of the 
 sheet, in crabbed hieroglyphics, that would puzzle 
 Schliemann himself to decipher. The average 
 editor, not having the patience or the genius of 
 Schliemann or Layard, makes n his mind that 
 the game isn't worth the candle, and so returns it 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 65 
 
 "with thanks," after struggling through the first 
 two or three pages. If the truth were known, his 
 thanks are not very deep or hearty. When you 
 become very distinguished you can afford to write 
 such a hand, and the editor may be willing to 
 decipher it, but, until you become at least as dis- 
 tinguished as Horace Greeley, do not imitate his 
 chirography. Again, the "unavailable manu- 
 script " is often unconscionably long. Cut it in 
 two in the middle, or, better still, lop off the 
 ends, both the introduction and the peroration, 
 and send on just the meaty middle, and see if it 
 is not accepted. Then, too, the editors tell me 
 that hundreds of manuscripts go back simply 
 because they do not rise above the dreary level of 
 the commonplace. They are not positively objec- 
 tionable ; the sentiment is good, and it is fairly 
 well expressed, but there is nothing bright or 
 fresh about them. They were written not be- 
 cause the author had something he deemed impor- 
 tant, something that he must say, but for the 
 sake of seeing himself in print. Do not strain 
 after effect or use "hifalutin" language. Some 
 writers, for the sake of being original, use such 
 unusual words and inverted sentences that few 
 
66 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 can understand them, and the editor at once 
 says to himself, " That must be returned with 
 thanks." Here are some directions that some- 
 times appear with an article, which always make 
 it unavailable : " This must appear in the next 
 issue." " If you don't publish it stop my paper." 
 "Pleas korrect mistaks. I am in a grate hurry." 
 These are some of the things the editors tell me 
 about unavailable articles, and I simply pass them 
 over to you. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO THE MAN WITH A WATCH. 
 
 My Dear Friend ; 
 
 I am very glad that you own a timepiece. I 
 hope it is an excellent one, and keeps correct 
 time ; but really, there is very little need of your 
 letting every one at church know that you have a 
 watch. I notice that you took it out of your 
 pocket and looked at it four times during the last 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 67 
 
 six minutes of your pastor's sermon, and every 
 time you returned it to your pocket you shut the 
 case with a spiteful little click, that resounded 
 through the church. If it must be announced 
 that you have a hunting-case watch, I wish you 
 would do it in some other way. You might post 
 the fact on the notice-board, or get the minister 
 to read it among the other announcements for the 
 week (it would hardly be more inappropriate than 
 many he is called upon to make). 
 
 It is possible, however, that your memory is 
 bad (less than two minutes long, in fact), and 
 that, on this account, you are obliged to look at 
 your watch so often. If so, how would it do to 
 take a course with Prof. Loisette ? I think that 
 would help you to remember that, two minutes 
 after you have found it to be quarter to twelve, it 
 is altogether likely that it is thirteen minutes to 
 twelve. It cannot be that you are so rude as to 
 look at your watch for the sake of reminding your 
 pastor that it is almost time for him to have done 
 preaching! I cannot think this of you, even 
 though some unkind persons are very free in 
 making this charge ; nor do I quite think it is 
 mere love of display on your part, since almost 
 
68 THE MOSSDACK CORRESrONDEN'CE. 
 
 everybody has a watch in these days, and you can- 
 not regard it as any great distinction. No, I am 
 inclined to adopt the other theory, and to believe 
 that it is due to a defective memory that you so 
 often consult your time-keeper during the sermon. 
 So I will give the great memory strengthener a 
 little more gratuitous advertising, and say: For 
 your unfortunate weakness, try Loisette. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO REV. J. LAMENTATION. 
 
 Dear Brother Jeremiah : 
 
 Is there really any need of taking such a dis- 
 mal view of the world and all things that are 
 therein ? I know things are not just as they used 
 to be in the old days when the part in our hair 
 was not so very wide as it is now. In some ways 
 I agree with you, that the change does not seem 
 to have been for the better, and yet many other 
 things are so manifestly better than they used to 
 
THK MOSSIIACK CORRESPONDENXE. 69 
 
 be that I believe the balance is infinitely on the 
 right side. 
 
 To wait half an hour at the depot for a belated 
 train is unpleasant, but it isn't nearly as bad as 
 not to have any train to wait for, and to have to 
 travel by stage-coach. If illuminating gas had 
 not been invented we should have no leaky pipes 
 or huge gas bills, and yet I should be sorry to go 
 back to the days of the candle dip, and I think 
 you would. Thus, many of these things of which 
 you complain are the product of the times, and it 
 is our business to make our times better, not to be- 
 rate them or constantly to bewail the "good old 
 times." Some of the skepticism of the day is 
 due, doubtless, to the increased intellectual ac- 
 tivity of the day. When all men are asking 
 "whence.!^" ** where .^" "whither.?" there must 
 necessarily be more doubt an^ infidelity than 
 when most men allowed their priests to do all 
 their thinking for them. 
 
 When people are brought together by the mil- 
 lion in a great city, there are many difficult prob- 
 lems which were not raised when a few thousands 
 were scattered over our hillsides and valleys. 
 But we cannot go back to the period of quiet 
 
70 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 colonial days if we should wish to, and we would 
 not wish to if we could. 
 
 When wealth increases, luxury and greed of 
 gain are likely to increase, too ; but we cannot re- 
 duce these evils by continually sighing for the old 
 times and lamenting because they cannot come 
 back again. 
 
 If the gas leaks, let us stop the leak instead of 
 blowing up the gas-house. If the train is late, 
 let us get to our destination just as soon as pos- 
 sible, instead of anathematizing the railroad and 
 refusing to get aboard when the train does come 
 along. If the times are bad, let us mend them, 
 instead of groaning over the departure of the 
 past and growling over the coming of the present, 
 for our lamentations will neither bring back yes- 
 terday nor delay the coming of to-morrow. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSHACK COKRESPONDKNXE. /I 
 
 AN OPEN LETTF:R FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO SISTER PATTER. 
 
 Dear Sister Patter : 
 
 It is insisted in some quarters that it is the 
 duty of ladies to be " talkative," and I am not dis- 
 posed to dispute this proposition, but do let us 
 have something worth talking about when we talk. 
 Not that we need to discourse about high and 
 mighty subjects always in Miltonian diction, but 
 there are surely enough matters to talk about 
 without descending to the utterly insignificant. 
 
 There is an expression which I have heard used 
 by the small boys, sometimes, which I fear is 
 hardly classical, but which is certainly expressive. 
 They say such and such a person "talks too much 
 with his mouth." By this, I think they mean 
 a bombastic, grandiloquent kind of speech that 
 hasn't much meaning in it, speech which has 
 more relation to the lips than to the heart or to 
 the head. Now, whether in man, woman or child, 
 dear Sister Patter, such talk is unprofitable. On 
 the political stump we should call it buncombe, in 
 the pulpit it would be termed rant, and in the 
 
72 THE MOSSBACK COKRESPONDKNCE. 
 
 private parlor it is just chatter. Many unkind 
 things have been said about woman's talkative- 
 ness. All literature is full of masculine epi- 
 grams on this subject, which, in my opinion, old 
 fogy that I am, are little deserved. I think that 
 men are just exactly as much inclined to **talk 
 with their mouths" as women, only they do it in 
 a loud, bombastic way, as though what they said 
 was authoritative, and always settled the matter. 
 But that is neither here nor there ; this letter is 
 to Sister Patter, not to Brother Bombast. 
 
 I would not be sarcastic or severe. I know 
 that you often have the " kindest heart in all the 
 world." Your chatter is not malicious nor always 
 gossipy even, but just tiresome. Simply because 
 you are such a "good soul," and have so much 
 compassion for your friends, do give us a rest. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THK MOSSHACK CORUESPOXnKN'CE, 73 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSHACK 
 
 TO THE MAN WHO COMES LATE 
 
 TO CHURCH. 
 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 There is an old adage which is often, appar- 
 ently, applied to church-going, and which says. 
 "Better late than never." This is all very well, 
 but a better motto still is, " Better early than late." 
 There are various considerations which support 
 this statement that, perhaps, you have never con- 
 sidered. I will not refer to the familiar argu- 
 ment, that this late entrance disturbs the minister 
 and distracts the congregation, for you have had 
 these considerations urged upon you a thousand 
 times. But one of these considerations which I 
 think will move you to better things is, that your 
 coming in late invests you with such an unpleas- 
 ant degree of conspicuousness. Why, if all Bar- 
 num's circus marched in, two by two, through the 
 church door, it could hardly attract more atten- 
 tion than you do when late you tiptoe in, ever so 
 softly. I know that you do not enjoy this notori- 
 ety. In fact, I think it must be rather unpleas- 
 ant. There is only one way to avoid it, — come 
 
74 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 early. Another reason why you should habitu- 
 ally be in your place on time is, that you are pro- 
 vocative of two very old and stale jokes, by being 
 habitually behind time. They have been perpe- 
 trated a thousand times in the past, and you 
 have yourself given occasion for them more than 
 once. If I was not so old myself I suppose I 
 should call them chestnuts. One of these ancient 
 jokes is to call you "The late Mr. Smith." The 
 other, equally aged, is to speak of your "right 
 hand and left hand and little behind hand." Do 
 spare the world the repetition of these venerable 
 puns, by being more promptly in your place. 
 
 Possibly, you think that these are not the most 
 important reasons for promptness, after all. Per- 
 haps they are not, but I am assuming that every 
 other argument has been exhausted upon you. If 
 I am wrong in urging upon you these motives, 
 then come early out of respect to your pastor, 
 and the sacred service, and the house of God, and 
 the cause which you wish to honor. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 75 
 
 AN OPEN LKTTKR TO THK CONGREGA- 
 TION CONCERNING THE MAN WHO 
 COMES LATE TO CHURCH. 
 
 Dear Friends : 
 
 This gentleman in whom you are all so much 
 interested, is, after all, nothing but a man. He 
 is neither an angel from the skies, nor a demon 
 from the pit. He has no wings sprouting from his 
 shoulders, nor horns, nor hoofs, nor forked tail. 
 He is really a common sort of a man, with a bad 
 habit of being late. He wears a frock coat with 
 five buttons down the front, a pair of pepper-and- 
 salt trousers, a stand up collar and a black string 
 necktie. He has a smooth face, with the excep- 
 tion of a moustache, and parts his hair on the left 
 side. You have seen just such a man a thousand 
 times before ; in fact, you have seen this very 
 man hundreds of times in the past, and you never 
 thought of looking at him twice. Why should 
 you turn around and distract the whole audience, 
 and break the thread of the minister's discourse, 
 simply because this old friend of yours is a little 
 late ? He is really just the same man on Sunday 
 
76 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 morning that he was on Saturday, and that he will 
 be on Monday. To have you turn around and 
 look at him is unpleasant to him, unkind to the 
 minister, and unbecoming to the House of God. 
 To be sure, so far as he is concerned, perhaps, it is 
 no more than he deserves, if he is habitually late, 
 and it may be that you turn around and stare at 
 him as a sort of mute reproach for being late, but 
 that is not the best way of correcting his habit. 
 Go to him privately with a word of counsel ; it is 
 far better than to try to stare him out of counte- 
 nance when he comes late to church. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 An Open Letter to the Members of the 
 
 Church That Does Not Promptly 
 
 Pay its Minister's Salary. 
 
 Dear P'riends : 
 
 I rejoice to believe at I am not addressing 
 my remarks in this letter to so large a constitu- 
 ency as it would have reached had I written it 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. // 
 
 some years ago, before my back was quite so 
 moss-grown. If the world is growing worse in 
 some particulars, as the i^essimists would have us 
 believe, it i; growing rather better in this, I think; 
 for I believe that the overworked and underpaid 
 ministers of the gospel get their salai -^ little 
 more promptly than they used to get it. How- 
 ever, there are enough of you left who are great 
 sinners in this respect, to warrant me in sending 
 you a letter. You expect your minister to be a 
 conspicuous example of probity and honesty. 
 You expect him to keep all the commandments, 
 and one of them (though it isn't contained in the 
 Decalogue) is, "Owe no man anything." But 
 how can he obey this when you owe him so 
 much ? You want him to put his very best intel- 
 lectual force into his sermons ; but how can that 
 be when half his intellectual force is dissipated in 
 worrying over his debts ? Your minister may be 
 a good extemporaneous preacher, but, as has been 
 before remarked, " However well a minister may 
 preach without his notes in the pulpit, he cannot 
 get along without notes in his pocket." In this 
 connection let me commend a story I have recent- 
 ly heard to your consideration : " I thought you 
 
78 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 preached for souls, not for money," said a mem- 
 ber of your church to a hard-working pastor. 
 "So I do," responded the pastor, "but I can't eat 
 souls ; and, if I could, it would take a thousand 
 such as yours to make a respectable meal." 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO BROTHER DRIVER. 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 I know that you have some enemies, but I wish 
 you to understand that, old man that I am, you 
 may count me as one of your warm friends and 
 admirers. How anything would ever be done in 
 this world were it not for you and your kinsmen 
 in the flesh I do not know. Especially in the 
 church are you needed. There are plenty of your 
 relatives in business life, plenty in society, plenty 
 of them in all the professions, but how few in the 
 church ! 
 
 I remember the time when the new organ was 
 needed. The old one wheezed and creaked and 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 79 
 
 groaned for years, and would have wheezed and 
 creaked and groaned until this day if it had not 
 so vexed your energetic soul that you started 
 around with a subscription paper, and in one week 
 had enough money raised for a new organ. 
 
 I remember, too, when the old pulpit cushions 
 had become so frayed and full of dust that every 
 time I waxed warm and energetic in the pulpit, 
 and brought my hand down on the desk with any- 
 thing like vigor, quite a little cloud of dust and 
 lint flew in every direction. You said, I recollect, 
 that "it was too bad that parson Mossback should 
 raise such a dust every time he came to the 
 'rousements,'" and in less than two weeks there 
 were new pulpit coverings, which I could safely 
 pound to my heart's content. 
 
 And well do I recollect the faded and weather- 
 beaten paint on the old meeting-house which 
 made our church quite the laughing-stock of the 
 town. 
 
 Deacon Slow said it ought to be painted, and 
 Brother Timid considered it quite disgraceful, and 
 Sister Patter and Sister Grumble spent the time 
 of several sewing circles in telling each other how 
 ashamed they were of the appearance of the old 
 
80 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 church. You did not say much, but you did head 
 a subscription paper, and gave the rest of them no 
 peace until enough money was raised to make our 
 old sanctuary respectable again. 
 
 These are not the only things you have done 
 either. You infused new life into the prayer- 
 meetings, and you toned up the Sunday school, and 
 you started the Society of Christian Endeavor, 
 and while some people think you are rather brisk 
 and brusque, and are a little afraid of your ener- 
 getic ways, I say, God bless you, Brother Driver, 
 and multiply your descendants. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MRS. SHEPHERDESS. 
 
 Allow me, dear Madam, to include you in the 
 list of those whom I admire for their work's sake. 
 When you became the wife of your husband, you 
 accepted the fact that you had married a minister, 
 and had peculiar and special duties, as a minis- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 8 1 
 
 ter's wife, which would not have fallen to your 
 lot if you had married a lawyer or a doctor. You 
 did not indulge in the current nonsense, to the 
 effect that the parish hired your husband, and not 
 yourself, and that they couldn't expect the ser- 
 vices of two people for one salary. Nor, when 
 you were asked to be president of the sewing cir- 
 cle, did you tartly respond that you married your 
 husband, and not your husband's parish. Ever 
 since that wedding-day, so happy for him, and for 
 you, too, if I mistake not, you have done what 
 you could, never neglecting your home cares, but 
 never making them an excuse for not doing 
 your duty as a Christian minister's wife. You 
 accepted the very evident fact at once, that, since 
 the other ladies looked to you for, direction and 
 leadership in certain matters, it was proper for 
 you to help in just those places where you were 
 asked and expected to help. You did not become 
 president of the maternal association, I know, 
 because you said that all your official aspirations 
 were satisfied when you became president of the 
 sewing circle, but you did just as much to help 
 the maternal association as if you vv^ere its presi- 
 dent. You put new life into it, and you took a 
 
82 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 class in the Sunday school, and you became a 
 member of the Lookout Committee of the Society 
 of Christian Endeavor, and you set about raising 
 funds for a new organ, and you started a fair for 
 the old Ladies' Home, and while you were careful 
 to give the other ladies the official positions, you 
 did a good cieal more than your share of the work. 
 You were never heard to grumble about it either, 
 or to find fault with those who did less. 
 
 When the city church sent its committee to 
 hear your husband preach, I heard one of them 
 say : " If all accounts are true, we shall make no 
 mistake in our minister's wife this time, anyway.** 
 Then, when your husband accepted the call, and 
 you left your country home and your first church, 
 I had my eyes and ears open, and I know how the 
 people, young and old, felt, as they said good-bye, 
 and said also one to another, ** We may get 
 another minister, but we shall never get such 
 another minister's wife." God bless you, my 
 dear Mrs. Shepherdess. 
 
 Your old friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 83 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO THE MAN WHO KEEPS A DIARY. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 I believe thoroughly in your habit of diary- 
 keeping, and wish I could persuade all who may 
 read my letters to follow your example for 
 another year, 1 know that you are held up to 
 frequent ridicule, and your poor diary furnishes 
 many a laugh for the unthinking. I know, too, 
 that it is apt to be far more voluminous on the 
 first day of January than on the first day of De- 
 cember, but that characteristic it shares with 
 many sublunary things, which are larger at the 
 start than at the finish. Nevertheless, I believe 
 in your diary, and I believe in you the more thor- 
 oughly for keeping one. It shows that you have 
 a self-reckoning, that you sometimes take an ac- 
 count of stock, that you do not regard the days as 
 they go by as sliding off into oblivion, but as 
 worth some record, though it may be that no eye 
 but your own will ever see the record. May I 
 make one or two suggestions .'' Do not make 
 the diary too sentimental. Do not have it filled 
 
84 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 with introspection and a dissection of motives 
 and self-accusations. Look back once in a while 
 over the past, but do not be continually looking 
 back or your head may get turned. Remember 
 Lot's wife. 
 
 Record common things. Even the weather is 
 not to be despised. Put down the date when 
 Johnny cut his first tooth, and Mary took her first 
 step. Forsitan hacc olim, etc. Record the text 
 from which your minister preached that excellent 
 sermon last Sunday, with the leading thought, if 
 you can remember it. Do not forget to make 
 some allusion to that happy hour you spent in 
 prayer and Bible-reading last week, and, if I were 
 you, I would write out in black and white the 
 good resolutions with which I began the new year, 
 and then read them over on the 31st day of next 
 December. The reading may make you blush, 
 but it is sometimes very healthy to bring the 
 blood to the surface. Remember that this diary 
 is to be kept under lock and key, and is only for 
 your own eye, so you can write yourself out just 
 as you are. It is only very great men like Car- 
 lyle who need fear to keep a diary. Your "life 
 and remains" and mine will probably never be 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 85 
 
 published, and no one would care much to read 
 them if they were. So we can keep a diary with- 
 out fear that our "remains" will hereafter be 
 mangled by well-meaning friends or malicious 
 foes. By all means let us keep it up throughout 
 
 the year. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAN WHO 
 GETS ANGRY WITH THE EDITOR. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 If I am not mistaken, you once stopped the 
 Metropolitan Gazette because you did not like a 
 single editorial that it contained. To be sure, 
 there were two hundred and forty-seven editorials 
 that same year which you did like, but you wanted 
 to show your disapproval, and instead of sending 
 a courteous note of remonstrance, you sent this 
 epistle to the editor : " Since you write such edi- 
 torial stuff, stop my paper." Another paper com- 
 mended a man in whom you did not believe, and 
 
86 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 you resorted to your usual panacea : " I do not 
 want any paper that praises such a rascal. Stop 
 my paper." Still another unfortunate journal to 
 which you once subscribed admitted an advertise- 
 ment which you thought was not wise. Very 
 likely if you had called the editor's attention to it 
 in a kindly way he would have agreed with you, 
 dropped the advertisement, and thanked you for 
 your pains. But instead you wrote ; ** Stop my 
 paper. I won't patronize any swindling advertis- 
 ing sheets." In fact, you treat an editor with 
 whom you disagree as you would no other gentle- 
 man. Perhaps it is because he writes under the 
 impersonal "we," and you think it is impossible 
 to insult an impersonal being. But allow me to 
 inform you that the chances are that the editor is 
 a gentleman. At least, unless you know some- 
 thing to the contrary, you should give him the 
 benefit of the doubt, and treat him as such. 
 This is a free country. There is no reason why 
 you should take his paper unless you choose, but 
 there are very decided reasons why, even in a free 
 country, you should treat every gentleman in a 
 gentlemanly way. Another thing to be remem- 
 bered, my friend, is that you are probably injuring 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDKNCE. 8/ 
 
 yourself far more than you are the editor. If the 
 paper is a valuable one it is worth far more to you 
 than your subscription is worth to it. And lastly, 
 much less lightning; goes with your thunder-bolt 
 than you imagine. Your brief philippic will prob- 
 ably never come to the editor's eye. It will waste 
 its sweetness, or rather its sourness on the desert 
 air of the subscription manager's desk. If I were 
 you I wouldn't send it. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK, 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE YOUNG 
 
 FOLKS OF THE FIRST CHURCH 
 
 OF CRANBERRYVILLE. 
 
 Dear Young Friends : 
 
 I have been talking with your pastor, Rev. 
 Simeon Godspeed, and he has told me what you 
 have done for him, and, in consequence, I want to 
 give you an old man's blessing. You saw that 
 your pastor looked troubled and anxious. He was 
 a little doleful in his prayer-meeting remarks, and 
 
88 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 his sermons betrayed the fact that he was getting 
 disheartened. This was the more noticeable be- 
 cause Parson Godspeed is naturally bright and 
 hopeful and by no means a pessimist. Some peo- 
 ple thought it would be well to cheer him up with 
 a donation party, and others thought that fifty dol- 
 lars a year ought to be added to his salary. Now 
 I haven't much faii;h in the doughnut cure myself, 
 and I don't believe that either a donation party or 
 fifty dollars additional salary would have helped 
 matters with Parson G. 
 
 Then there was another set in the church who 
 began to whisper that Mr. Godspeed was getting 
 along in years, and that if he preached many more 
 such gloomy sermons, it would be time to look 
 out for a new minister. If things had gone on in 
 this way, I don't know what these malcontents 
 might not have done, but just then you came to 
 the rescue. A meeting of the committees of your 
 society was first held. Henry Rossiter was chair- 
 man of the lookout committee, and he called the 
 committees to order and spoke as follows : *' I 
 think I know what the matter with our pastor is. 
 Doughnuts and cord-wood and mince-pies and 
 pickles won't meet the difficulty. Neither will an 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 89 
 
 addition to his salary or a repainting of the meet- 
 ing-house. He is discouraged because of the lack 
 of spiritual results, and I, for one, don't wonder. 
 I move that we go to work to help him." That 
 motion was unanimously carried, and then you be- 
 gan to make the plans. The prayer-meeting com- 
 mittee said that they would do their best to make 
 the next church prayer-meeting the best one ever 
 held in Cranberryville, and the lookout committee 
 said ^hey would see every young person that went 
 to that church, and get them all out to it, and 
 make sure also that all of them should be present 
 next Sunday morning at church. The Sunday 
 school committee were confident that there were 
 some young people who might be brought into 
 the school, and, what was better, they would get 
 them in ; while the music committee, by sitting 
 together on the front seats and getting all the 
 other singers to sit with them, thought they could 
 improve the prayer-meeting singing. The social 
 committee did not want to be outdone, and they 
 agreed to stand at the door to welcome any new- 
 comers ; while the calling committee said they 
 would at once go to see the three new families 
 who had moved into town over at Slab Hollow, 
 
90 THE MOSSBACK COKRESPONDENCE. 
 
 and see if there were not some young people 
 there to be brought in. Well, to make a long 
 story short, all these plans were carried out. The 
 good parson was surprised to see seventy-three 
 people at the next church prayer-meeting, instead 
 of the usual twenty-one, and such a prayer-meet- 
 ing as it was — forty-four prayers and testimonies, 
 mostly from the young people, and such good 
 singing ! Why, Parson Godspeed began to think 
 that the millennium was coming, and he was al- 
 most sure of it when next Sunday the congrega- 
 tion was twice as large as usual, and there seemed 
 such an unusual air of fellowship and good-will. 
 He never preached so in all his life either ; some 
 people said he seemed inspired. There wasn't a 
 doleful sentence in all his sermon, and, what was 
 better than all, that Sunday was apparently the 
 beginning of a revival such as Cranberryville had 
 never known. I think I know where that revival 
 began. What you did was as much better than a 
 donation party as prayer is better than provender, 
 and earnest co-operation is better than squash- 
 pies and doughnuts. God bless you all. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 9I 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO SISTER DORCAS. 
 
 Dear Sister : 
 
 I rejoice that your ancestress who died eight- 
 een hundred years ago left such a prolific and 
 numerous family behind her. What our churches 
 would do without Sister Dorcas is more than I 
 can imagine. The ladies' prayer-meeting needs 
 her, the mission circle needs her, the church socia- 
 ble needs her, while, of course, the ladies' benevo- 
 lent society and the sewing-circle must have her. 
 The trouble is that Sister Dorcas is apt to be 
 overworked, even if there are several of her, and 
 sometimes there comes an alarming period in the 
 life of a church when, grown old in the service of 
 the church militant, she is removed to the church 
 triumphant, and no one is left to take her place. 
 
 And now, good sister Dorcas, since such an 
 event, happy for you but disastrous to the church, 
 may happen at any moment, why not start a 
 Dorcastry .'* I do not mean just such an institu- 
 tion as one of our aggressive ministers has re- 
 cently told about in the papers, but a private 
 
92 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 school where likely girls may be trained to take 
 your place. I would not have it known that there 
 was such a school, nor would I let the pupils 
 themselves know that they were attending it. 
 Just bring the young ladies under your kindly 
 influence ; show them what the church needs ; set 
 them at work in some approved way ; give them 
 some of your tasks, even though they do bungle 
 them at first; send them on errands of mercy; 
 let them help you plan the next church supper 
 and the next missionary meeting. Above all, 
 inspire them with your love and burning zeal for 
 Christ ; and the Church of the twentieth century, 
 and of twenty centuries to come, will call you 
 blessed. You see I wax warm when I think of the 
 glorious work you may perform for our churches, 
 even though I am an old fogy minister, whom 
 some people think superannuated. May God bless 
 you and increase your tribe. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 93 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAN WHO 
 
 DOES NOT INTEND TO PAY FOR 
 
 HIS NEWSPAPER. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 I hear that you have not paid your subscription 
 to your religious newspaper for two years; in 
 fact, if you will look at the tag, I don't know but 
 you will find that you are three or four years 
 behind. If it is simply forgetfulness on your 
 part, I will own to a good deal of sympathy with 
 you, for I am a forgetful old gentleman myself ; 
 but if you belong to the tribe who wish to cheat 
 the publishers out of several years' subscription, 
 I have no patience with you. 
 
 Why, man, paper and type, and leading articles 
 and editorial services cost money, as well as beef- 
 steak and potatoes and crackers and cheese, and I 
 know what the butcher and grocer would say if 
 you allowed them to deliver goods at your door 
 for which you never expected to pay. "But," you 
 say, "the publishers are not obliged to send 
 me their paper." To be sure, but they are not so 
 foolish as to stop its weekly visits, and throw 
 away eight dollars which you owe for four years, 
 
94 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 and so they keep sending you the paper and fre- 
 quent duns as well, perhaps, to remind you of 
 what you owe them. 
 
 Some kinds of meanness are meaner than other 
 kinds, but few kinds are more despicable than 
 that of the man who goes to work systematically 
 and deliberately to cheat his newspaper. You 
 might claim, with some show of reason, that the 
 beefsteak charged on your butcher's bill was too 
 high, but the cheapest article that comes into 
 your home is the good newspaper. That which 
 would cost five hundred dollars to produce if only 
 a single copy was made, you get for five cents, or 
 perhaps for two, and yet you let it come every 
 week, and refuse to pay the two cents at the end 
 of the year. Then, again, this is the meanest 
 kind of meanness, because you think you will not 
 be exposed or disgraced in the eyes of your neigh- 
 bors, you take advantage of your remoteness and 
 supposed freedom from exposure to filch six or 
 eight dollars out of the pockets of the publisher. 
 Come, my friend, read the eighth commandment 
 over again, and pay up like a man. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 95 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MISS GRACE KINDHEART. 
 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 I have frequently thought of writing to you to 
 express the admiration I have long had for your 
 character. You have always supposed, I pre- 
 sume, that I was such an old fogy that I never 
 took any notice of the young ladies. But old 
 fogies see what is going on, 1 assure you, and I 
 have often remarked what a pleasant, good-natured 
 expression your face habitually wears. I have 
 never heard you laugh very loudly, and have 
 rarely seen you giggle, but your face is like a ray 
 of sunshine whenever I see you pass my window. 
 ( I am sure it will not make you vain to have an 
 old man tell you this.) Then, too, I have noticed 
 how helpful you are at home, always as ready to 
 aid the good mother as though the queen herself 
 had given you a royal commission. Then, again, 
 I have often seen you walking with your own 
 brother, and apparently enjoying his company just 
 as much as you would that of some other girl's 
 brother. I know, also, how you went to see little 
 Jennie Jones when she had the scarlet fever, and 
 
96 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 no one else would go near her ; and how you fre- 
 quently take a bunch of flowers to crippled Susie 
 Smith ; and how you sometimes take care of Mrs. 
 Brown's eleventh and last baby, so she can get 
 out to church once in a while. 
 
 Oh, yes! we old people keep our eyes open 
 even when you do think we are half asleep ; and 
 though you supposed no one ever knew about 
 these things, you were very much mistaken. Let 
 me tell you another thing, too, if the likeliest 
 young man in town ever asks my advice in regard 
 to the matrimonial venture, I shall tell him (you 
 needn't blush) that he will be a very fortunate fel- 
 low if he can ever win the love of Grace Kind- 
 heart. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO MRS. ATTENTIVE. 
 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 I suppose you never will know, in this world, 
 the good you have accomplished, but I think when 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 97 
 
 the angel opens the pearly gate to let you in, you 
 will hear a sweet voice whispering in your ear, 
 "You helped the minister preach his sermons, 
 and you prevented many a disastrous failure in 
 the prayer-meeting, and many a soul has entered 
 these gates because your attentive eye saw what 
 he needed and supplied the timely word." You 
 will very likely be much surprised," like those peo- 
 ple whom we read about in the 25th chapter of 
 Matthew, and will wonderingly ask when you did 
 all this. I will tell you, for there is no reason 
 why a good soul like yourself should not have a 
 "well done" in this life, as well as in the life to 
 come. 
 
 In the first place, your very attitude in church 
 has helped your pastor a thousand times. Even 
 in the hottest weather, when Dea. Snorer used 
 to yield to Morpheus before the organ voluntary 
 was over, and when Miss Peacock fluttered her 
 fan in a most distracting way throughout the 
 whole service, your pastor could always turn to 
 you and see one pair of eyes fixed on him. You 
 were never able to afford a conspicuous seat, and 
 you thought that, as you sat back under the 
 gallery, no one noticed you, but I assure you that 
 
98 THE MOSSRACK COKRESPONDF.XCE. 
 
 your pastor's eyes have very often sought your 
 seat for the encouragement which your fixed at- 
 tention and eager attitude have alvviys furnished. 
 
 Then, too, you were always at the prayer-meet- 
 ing, and brought the same blessed characteristic 
 with you there. You knew what was going on. 
 You had an appropriate verse of Scripture, or a 
 poem, to take the place of the awkward pause 
 which you instinctively felt was about to ensue. 
 
 Then the way in which your kindly and atten- 
 tive eye always detected the dangerous temptation 
 to which Freddie Young was likely to yield, or the 
 incipient flirtation which might ruin the life of 
 Jennie Littlesense, and the way in which you 
 guarded them from so many shoals, always filled 
 me with gratitude that a few people go through 
 life with their eyes open. 
 
 Once more please accept the thanks of your old 
 friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSIJACK COKKESPONDKNCE. QQ 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE YOUNG MAN 
 WHO IS ABOUT TO GET ENGAGED. 
 
 My Dear Young Friend : 
 
 I have had private but authentic information 
 that you are about to become engaged, or, at least, 
 about to "pop" the momentous question, which 
 may result in an engagement. You may say that 
 it is none of Mr. Mossback's business what you 
 are about to do, but I think you will pardon a few 
 words even on this delicate subject from an old 
 man. In the first place, I congratulate you heart- 
 ily if the young lady is, as you believe, the one 
 girl in all the United States who can make you 
 happy. There is nothing so good for a young 
 man as to have a home of his own and a pretty 
 wife to pour out his tea on the other side of the 
 cosy supper-table if he gets the right girl to pre- 
 side over his tea-table, — but not otherwise. I ad- 
 mit that it sounds rather ungracious to insinuate 
 even so much as a single "if" or "but" just here, 
 yet it is a good deal better to put in the "if" or 
 "but" now than to have it involuntarily insert it- 
 
100 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 self by and by, after you have established that 
 supper table. 
 
 Is she kindly tempered and good-natured ? 
 Does she treat her old father and mother with re- 
 spect and her little brother with gentleness ? 
 Does she sympathize with you in your tastes, at 
 least, to some extent ? Is she " sugar and spice 
 and all that's nice" only when you are in the 
 room ? Did you ever overhear a sharp, petulant, 
 quarrelsome voice issuing from her lips when she 
 thought you didn't hear.!* Has she broken a 
 score of hearts already ? Has she, metaphorically, 
 a dozen lovers' scalps at her belt ? Does she like 
 neighborhood tattle better than a good book ? 
 
 These are rather cold-blooded questions to pro- 
 pound to you in your present state of mind, I 
 know, but this is the best time to ask them, and, 
 if they can be answered satisfactorily, I think that 
 the afore-mentioned cosy tea-table will be some- 
 thing more than a bright picture of the imagina- 
 tijn, one of these days. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. lOI 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE YOUNG 
 
 LADY WHO WILL SOON BE ASKED 
 
 IN MARRIAGE. 
 
 My Dear Young Friend ; 
 
 As I said in my last letter, I have had private 
 but authentic information that a certain young 
 gentleman is about to ask a very important ques- 
 tion. I have equally accurate news that you are 
 the one who will have to answer the question. 
 If the asking it is a matter of importance to him, 
 answering it in the right way is a matter doubly 
 important to you. 
 
 That cosy tea-table which figures in both your 
 imaginations, will probably fill a larger space in 
 your life than in his, and it is a matter of 
 supreme moment to you who sits on the other 
 side of it. You are well acquainted with this 
 man who is about to ask the important question, I 
 understand. Very likely you have some premoni- 
 tion of what is coming. When he called last Fri- 
 day night you saw that he had something serious 
 on his mind, and I shouldn't wonder if he got it 
 off his mind when he calls next Friday night. 
 
I02 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Let me presume upon the liberty of age and 
 ask you two or three questions. Does the said 
 young man have a shady reputation for honesty 
 and straightforward dealing.? Does he ever 
 drink.? Is his breath suspiciously redolent of 
 cloves ? Does he ever apologetically smother an 
 oath in your presence.? Has he a well-founded 
 reputation of belonging to the "fast. set.?" Does 
 he rather pride himself on being a **hard boy.?" 
 Does he laugh at the prayer meeting .? Does he 
 feel too big to go to Sunday school .? Does he 
 refuse to go to church, but come sneaking around 
 at the close of the service for the sake of going 
 home with you.? If these questions must be 
 truthfully answered in the affirmative, I hope that 
 your answer to him will be spelled with two 
 letters rather than with three. I would rather be 
 single all my life, with only a black cat to love 
 me, than have such an apology of a man for 
 a husband. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. IO3 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO REV. O. F. FISH. 
 
 Dear Brother: 
 
 I acknowledge your intellectual resources and 
 your critical ability, and am not disposed to depre- 
 ciate, in any degree, your admirable mental quali- 
 ties ; but I do think your guns are pointed the 
 wrong way. I rarely hear you preach or speak on 
 temperance, for instance, but you spend most of 
 your time in belaboring the W. C. T. U. for its 
 sins of omission or commission ; or you get in 
 a neat drive at the Sons of Temperance, or allude 
 flippantly to the defunct Washingtonian move- 
 ment. When missions is your theme, it is the 
 unwisdom of existi ig agencies and the superior 
 advantage of that ideal missionary society which 
 you have inaugurated — on paper. If the Sunday 
 school happens to be the burden of conversation, 
 one would almost suppose that all the ills of lax 
 family government, parental carelessness, unfilial 
 behavior and ignorance of the Word of God and 
 the doctrines of the church could be laid at the 
 nursery door of the church. 
 
104 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Perhaps it is the younger brother of the Sun- 
 day school, the Society of Chrirtian Endeavor, 
 which is under discussion. You acknowledge 
 that it seems to be doing a good work wherever 
 tried, but you have discovered certain "tenden- 
 cies" which alarm you; or you see an "entering 
 wedge" somewhere lying about, which gives you 
 concern (by the way, you always have a large 
 assortment of " entering wedges " on hand) ; or 
 yon have reason to believe that the leaders in the 
 work are ambitious or self-seeking, and so you 
 withhold your approval, and block the wheels so 
 far as you can. 
 
 Now, dear deluded brother, I beg of you to turn 
 your guns the other way. What is the use of al- 
 ways trying to make it hot for your own garrison, 
 instead of for the enemy ? There are the rum- 
 shops to fight. If you don't like the Christian 
 Temperance Union methods, use your own ; but 
 remember it is rum and the rum-shop and the 
 rum-seller whom you have to oppose, instead of 
 the temperance workers. If you don't like exist- 
 ing missionary methods, by all means use your 
 own methods, start your own society, send out 
 your own missionary to do your own work in 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 10$ 
 
 your own way ; but, in order to do that, it is not 
 necessary to pu^l down the organization in which 
 the rest of the church sees fit to work. You will 
 not take it unkindly, I hope, if I remind you that 
 the enemy which missionaries are attempting to 
 fight is on the foreign field, not in your own 
 church. The Sunday school is not yet a perfect 
 institution, but it will not be any more perfect 
 after you have tried to cripple it by assuring the 
 world that it is a nuisance. The Christian En- 
 deavor Society is doing the best it can to raise up 
 a generation of outspoken, faithful young Chris- 
 tians, loyal to Christ and the Church. If you 
 have a better plan, by all means propose it, and I 
 think it will very soon be adopted by the Chris- 
 tian world. In fact, dear brother, the only trouble 
 with you is that your battery points in the wrong 
 direction. It is composed of excellent guns, they 
 are well loaded with grape and canister, and you 
 are an excellent marksman. Your mistake is 
 only one of direction. Turn your guns about ; 
 point them at your enemies and God's enemies, 
 rather than at your friends and His friends. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
I06 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER FROM MR. MOSSBACK 
 TO BROTHER TIGHTFIST. 
 
 Dear Brother: 
 
 When the collector for foreign missions called 
 upon you for your subscription the other day, I 
 understand that you told her that it was quite pre- 
 posterous to give so much money for a parcel of 
 heathen in the middle of Africa. As for you, 
 when you had any money to give, you were not 
 going to send it so far away from home. Amer- 
 ica \^as good enough for you and a good enough 
 place in which to spend your money. By and by 
 came the time for the home missionary collection 
 and another solicitor asked you for your contri- 
 bution for that purpose. You told him that home 
 missions were all very well, but, as for you, you 
 believed in the city missions, and you wished to 
 see the dirty hoodlums around the church door 
 converted before you sent your money off to 
 Dakota. It was not long before the cause of city 
 missions was presented and the good minister 
 thought surely you would give largely to this 
 cause ; but, what was his surprise, to find you had 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 10/ 
 
 SO many poor relatives of your own that "you 
 could not pretend to take care of other people's 
 relatives," and then you quoted, with great unc- 
 tion, the oft-perverted Scripture, "If a man pro- 
 vide not for his own, and specially for those of his 
 own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse 
 than an infidel." Of course the minister gave up 
 all hopes of aid for city missions, but when he 
 came to ask your relatives about the matter, he 
 found that you were your own poorest relative, and 
 that your own bank account swallowed up all the 
 pennies you could get together. 
 
 Now, dear brother, you think that you deceive 
 the world and make people believe that you are 
 generous by playing off these various causes one 
 against another, but no one is deceived. It would 
 be a good deal more honest and quite as well for 
 your reputation if you should say frankly when the 
 next collector comes to you : " I have nothing to 
 give you. I want it all myself. I can't bear to 
 have the money get out of my coffers. I am go- 
 ing to hold on to it just as long as I can, and 
 when I can no longer clutch it, I'll leave it for my 
 heirs and the lawyers to quarrel over." That 
 doesn't look so well on paper, but it has the ad- 
 
I08 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 vantage of being honest. It is hard to deceive 
 your fellow-men, and still harder to deceive the 
 angels. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHURCH 
 
 COMMITTEE IN SEARCH OF 
 
 A PASTOR. 
 
 Dear Brethren : 
 
 Your church, if I am not mistaken, is in a 
 smart and growing town ; you have lately painted 
 your church without and frescoed it within ; you 
 can pay a salary of $1,900 and the parsonage, and 
 you are in need of a pastor. You have my hearti- 
 est sympathy in your search. If any body of men 
 needs grace and wisdom, you are the men. There 
 was Rev. Zaccheus Pusher, who thought he could 
 grace your pulpit, and who prevailed upon his 
 forty-seven personal friends to write you forty- 
 seven personal letters extolling the said Rev. Zac- 
 cheus to the skies. Had it not been for the mar- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. lOQ 
 
 vellous spontaneity of these endorsements and 
 the remarkable fact that they all came in the 
 same week, Rev. Z. P. might now be your pastor ; 
 but some things are altogether too spontaneous. 
 Then there was Dr. Solomon Heavyweight, whose 
 friends knew so much better than you did that he 
 was "just the man" you needed for your church. 
 Then the whole class in Jerusalem Seminary 
 engaged your attention, but as the young lady 
 who had so many beaux to choose between went 
 through life unmarried, so, between all the very 
 attractive young divines, it was difficult to choose, 
 and you ended by taking none of them. At last, 
 Rev. Horatius Rustler came along and preached 
 two Sundays in your pnlpit and so captivated one 
 portion of the audience that there seemed likely 
 to be a serious split in the church when another 
 portion, not liking his breezy style, voted against 
 him and the call was lost by two votes. How- 
 ever, common-sense and divine grace prevailed, 
 and harmony ruled once more until Rev. Job 
 Steadfast preached and reversed the order, pleas- 
 ing most of those whom Rev. Mr. Rustler had not 
 pleased. But again the call failed and again there 
 was danger of division. And now two years have 
 
no THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 passed away and your poor church is apparently 
 no nearer a settlement of the difficulty than it 
 was when your good old pastor died. What shall 
 you do? I think I can tell you. Pass a church 
 vote to hear no more candidates. Then let a 
 lar^e and wise committee, in whom the church 
 has confidence, be chosen to obtain a pastor. 
 There is some young man (or perhaps he is not 
 so young) waiting in another parish or in the 
 seminary for the Lord to open to him just such a 
 church as yours. He is pious, earnest, able and 
 humble, and he does not write to church com- 
 mittees in his own behalf. Look up his record. 
 Find out what he has done, how he has lived, 
 how he has wrought and how he preaches. Then, 
 if his record is good, call him and settle him over 
 your church, if he will accept the call. Do not 
 expect to get a Gabriel, and remember that if 
 Gabriel should accept your call he would not feel 
 at all at home in your parish. I have very little 
 doubt that this modest man whom you will thus 
 prayerfully and carefully select will be the very 
 one for your distracted parish. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MoSSBACK. 
 
THE MOSSnACK CORRESPONDENCE. I I I 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MINISTER 
 WHO IS LOOKING EOR A PARISH. 
 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 I know your tribulations full well, and I sympa- 
 thize with you with all my heart. You have been 
 in search of a pastorate for a year and three-quar- 
 ters, and still you have not found it. I know 
 your sterling qualities of mind and heart. You 
 stood near the head of your class in college ; your 
 seminary record is unquestionably good ; your ser- 
 mons are full of "meat"; your heart is full of 
 grace; your first pastorate was more than usually 
 successful, and you left it through no fault of your 
 own. Then you began candidating — what else 
 could you do .? At Green Pasture, they had noth- 
 ing against you, in fact, rather liked your sermons, 
 but you were the first candidate they had had, and 
 the committee decided that they must hear others 
 for purposes of comparison. The result was that 
 opinion in that church became hopelessly divided 
 by this comparative process, and they are no 
 nearer to a pastor to-day than you are to a parish. 
 Then at Still Waters, on the contrary, where you 
 
112 THE MOSSIiACK COKKKSI'UNDICN'CE. 
 
 next preached, they had been making so many 
 comparisons that you did not suit. To be sure, 
 many liked you and wanted you, but those were 
 the ones who did not like Rev. Mr. Rustler, and 
 when your name came up, Mr. Rustler's friends 
 rallied and defeated you. At Sleepy Hollow, the 
 deaf old deacon who sat on the front seat com- 
 plained that you did not speak loud enough, and 
 he could not vote for you ; while at Metropolis- 
 ville, rich Mrs. Nervine declared that you 
 preached so loud that it made her "poor head 
 snap," and she should have to withdraw her sub- 
 scription if you were called. At Beacon Hill, 
 your necktie unfortunately got out of kilter and 
 offended the fastidious ; and at Junctiontown, 
 your sermon was thought to reflect upon the can- 
 didate for selectman, whose political actions, in 
 spite of the fact that he hired a pew on the broad 
 aisle, would hardly bear inspection. Now, dear 
 brother, I know that you are patient and long-suf- 
 fering, as well as earnest and able, but you cannot 
 go on thus forever. Even your disposition will 
 get soured. And yet your ill-fortune is due as 
 little to the people to whom you have preached as 
 to yourself ; it is the fault of the wretched candi- 
 
THE MOSSHACK COKRF.SPONDENCE. II3 
 
 dating system. If you do not turn Methodist and 
 let the bishop manage the whole business, there is 
 only one thing else to do. Take the first place 
 that opens to you, however small the parish and 
 meagre the salary. It may not be at all commen- 
 surate with your gifts or education. Neverthe- 
 less, take it; do conspicuously good work just 
 there ; labor for those people as you would have 
 labored for that church at Metropolisville, which 
 did not call you ; preach every Sunday the best 
 sermons that six days of hard bbor can furnish, 
 and it will not be long before you are called to a 
 wider field, and that church which wants a pastor, 
 as much as you want a parish, will settle you, let 
 us hope, for life. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. MOSSBACK. 
 
MR. MOSSBACK'S VIEWS 
 
 ON 
 
 PRACTICAL SUBJECTS. 
 
MR. MOSSBACK'S VIEWS ON PRACTICAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 THE BOOK AGENT. 
 
 Next to the long-suffering mother-in-law, the 
 book agent probably is made a target for more 
 cheap wit of the average newspaper variety, than 
 any other modern mortal. He may deserve some 
 of the opprobrium that is cast upon him, for his 
 persistence in the sale of his wares is not always 
 of the gentle and winning variety, but after all we 
 are inclined to consider him one of the benefac- 
 tors of humanity. Subscription books, even if 
 their contents are made to order, and their bind- 
 ings are often cheap and glittering shoddy, are 
 better than no books at all, and many a house in 
 America would be as destitute of books as a 
 Zulu's kraal were it not for the insinuating bland- 
 ishments of the peripatetic bookseller. At any 
 
 117 
 
Il8 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 rate, we are convinced that he is deserving of 
 better treatment than he usually receives from the 
 public. Suppose he does ring your door-bell, 
 good housewife, when your hands are in the dough 
 and your cakes are frying, he is at least worthy of 
 a polite refusal, if ycu do not wish his wares, 
 rather than a metaphorical slap in the face and an 
 actual slam of the door. 
 
 A poor fellow who was engaged in this business 
 said to me the other day, ** I can stand it no 
 longer. I have been so often abused and ill- 
 treated and snubbed and all but kicked down the 
 steps that it has actually made me sick. I am 
 afraid to ring the door-bells any longer, my feel- 
 ings have been so often hurt. I know of no other 
 way to earn an honest living, but I cannot keep 
 on at this business. If I wasn't a grown man, 
 with a little of a man's pride left in me, I should 
 go off and lie down and cry, as I sometimes did 
 when a little boy." Very likely this was an ex- 
 treme case of sensitiveness, but I am convinced 
 that more than one, if equally frank, would con- 
 fess to the same experience. I well remember a 
 wealthy and distinguished physician, whom I once 
 -'.iccrved as he was approached by a book agent, 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. I I9 
 
 with the usual well committed tale concerning his 
 books. "I thank you," replied the gentleman 
 (for he was a thorough gentleman), "I thank you 
 for giving me this opportunity to buy your book, 
 but I really am so busy to-day that I have not 
 time to examine its merits. You must excuse me 
 to-day." The book agent was so paralyzed by 
 this unaccustomed treatment that he went away 
 without another word. Similar treatment on the 
 part of my readers may produce equally happy 
 effects. 
 
 WINGS BUT NO LEGS. 
 
 It is Bishop Warburten, I believe, who says 
 something like this : " A lie has wings but no 
 legs. It cannot stand, but it is always ready to 
 fly far and wide." How often this striking epi- 
 gram has been proved true ! Lies intentional, 
 and lies unintentional^ lies of ignorance, and lies 
 of malice aforethought, they all have wings, and 
 the more dastardly and despicable the lie the 
 stronger its power of flight. They are like foul 
 
I20 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 night-birds, passing overhead in the darkness ; 
 one hears only a dismal sound and sees not the 
 things that utter it. No sensible or right-minded 
 person gives any credence to an anonymous let- 
 ter, but many a person will put full faith in an 
 anonymous lie. "They say," with some, is almost 
 equal to a sworn affidavit or the verdict of a jury. 
 " Where there is so much smoke there must be 
 some fire," is a favorite motto with many people 
 who think themselves wondrous wise. But it is 
 far from being universally true. The helplessness 
 of the victim of an anonymous lie is often a piti- 
 able, not to say pathetic, feature. He cannot 
 fight it any more than he can fight the enveloping 
 fog. It comes, no one knows whence, and goes, 
 no one knows whither, but it stays long enough to 
 weight the whole atmosphere with its unwhole- 
 some presence, and to find its way into every 
 household. No profession, perhaps, is so endan- 
 gered by the anonymous lie as the ministerial. 
 The fiendish men and women who start them 
 know this very well, and are not slow to take 
 advantage of this knowledge. A clergyman's 
 good name once smirched, they know is forever 
 smirched, and a lie that is easy to start may be 
 
THE MOSSIJACK CORRESPONDENCE. 121 
 
 impossible to refute. Every man owes it not 
 only to his neighbor, but to himself, either to 
 utterly disregard the scandalous rumor or to fol- 
 low it up and prove its falsity or truth. Do not 
 be deceived by the strength and breadth of its 
 wing ; see if it has legs and can stand. 
 
 THE BUZZ-SAW OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 "The buzz-saw of experience," sagely exclaims 
 one of the secular papers, *' cuts off many 
 thumbs and fingers before the green hands learn 
 to respect its revolutions." This aphorism has 
 many an application. The would-be dealer in 
 stocks who aspires to be wise concerning "puts" 
 and " calls " and "margins " and "futures " often 
 realizes its truth, and finds that the buzz-saw of 
 experience has made sad havoc with him, cutting 
 him off. in fact, close to his thumbs. The pre- 
 suming young man in society, after many a snub, 
 learns to respect the social buzz-saw. 
 
 The spread eagle orator, after flopping to the 
 
122 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 earth with disabled pinions once or twice, learns 
 that a certain oratorical buzz-saw keeps up with 
 his loftiest flight, and clips his wings in a most 
 cruel and unexpected way. But all these experi- 
 ences are as nothing compared with that of him 
 who tampers with the buzz-saw of dissipation. 
 Alas ! alas for the young man who will not learn 
 by the awful experience of the bleeding myriads 
 who have been hacked and slaughtered by strong 
 drink or licentiousness ! Most sad is this experi- 
 ence, since even the pain and disgrace does not 
 teach wisdom or keep the victim out of reach of 
 the destroyer. The dealer in stocks, once victim- 
 ized, usally learns caution ; the society beau does 
 not often expose himself to ridicule the second 
 time ; the public speaker, when he finds he can- 
 not soar, is content to walk ; but the more the 
 sharp teeth of dissipation cut, the more the victim 
 rushes within their grasp, until, at last, there is 
 nothing left even for dissipation to pierce and de- 
 stroy. The buzz-saw of gambling and dishonest 
 gain is equally direful. It is not content to cut 
 off a thumb here, and a finger there, or even to 
 hack off an arm or a leg, it cuts the whole 
 man, body and soul. Woe unto the young man 
 
THE M03S13ACK CORKESPOxNDENCE. 1 23 
 
 who will not be warned by the experience of 
 others, but who ventures to play with the very 
 teeth of destruction. 
 
 BANDAGING THE WRONG LEG. 
 
 The story is going the rounds about the effi- 
 cient young lady who had attended emergency lec- 
 tures and studied nursing as a high art ; who, 
 suddenly being called to put her newly-acquired 
 knowledge into practice by a carriage accident, 
 with an heroic soul, flew to the relief of the poor 
 man who was injured, tore her skirt into frao-- 
 ments, improvised certain splints, and bandaged 
 his leg with the greatest celerity and skill. Her 
 work was really scientific and admirable, but when 
 the injured man was removed to the hospital, it 
 was found that the sound leg was bandaged, and 
 that the broken one had received no attention. 
 
 Whether this story is strictly true will probably 
 never be known by most of us, but to all intents 
 and purposes it is true ; the wrong leg has been 
 bandaged a thousand times. With the best inten- 
 
124 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 tions possible and most kindly feelings, the well- 
 meaning friend rushes to the rescue, only to seize 
 the wrong member or to do his work so inconsid- 
 erately that it is sure to be bunglingly done. The 
 poor man who needs a word of encouragement to 
 help him up from the ditch receives a large 
 amount of good advice given in a caustic manner, 
 which throws him back into the mire again, while 
 the self-conceited, bumptious individual, whom a 
 little plain talk would not harm, is patted on the 
 back, and made more conceited than ever. The 
 poor parson, who feels the need of greenbacks 
 more than any other one thing, is presented with 
 his nineteenth pair of slippers or with an orna- 
 mented and highly-aesthetic coal-scuttle. 
 
 The poor college, in whose empty treasury a 
 
 penny would rattle, is left as poor as ever, while 
 the rich university has tens of thousands continu- 
 ally added to its millions. It would be quite to 
 the advantage of all concerned if some people 
 would not exhibit their generosity (bless their 
 kind hearts) as they do ; but would make a careful 
 examination to see which is the injured or needy 
 member, and thus not so often bandage the 
 wrong leg. 
 
THE M0SSI5ACK CURRESPONDKNCE. 125 
 
 MAKE THE BEST OF HIM. 
 
 There is a good deal of philosophy in the re- 
 mark of the old lady brought out by the wayward 
 boy: "Well, there's something spiles us all." 
 If this thought does not excuse the young scape- 
 grace, it at least makes us more charitable toward 
 him ; and, though some glaring fault or weakness 
 may spoil his character, this very fact shows that 
 there is something to spoil, and, consequently, 
 something worth saving, if he is not wholly corrupt. 
 It will never do to forget that this is a world of 
 mixed good and evil. The saint is not often quite 
 so white as his biographers paint him, nor the evil 
 man quite so black as his photographers make 
 him. Even Paul and Peter, good men as they 
 both were, could have a grievous falling out, and 
 David could commit a sin which seems unpardon- 
 able to us, and Luther could be too hot-tempered, 
 and Calvin could be implacable. While on the 
 other hand, Esau, even in selling his birthright, 
 had some generous impulses, and Saul had his 
 lucid periods of repentance, and Henry the Eighth 
 did something besides kill his wives, and Napo- 
 
126 TlIK MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Icon's record is not wholly made up of unjust 
 bloodshed. 
 
 No good man on this side of Jordon's flood is 
 wholly good ; no bad man this side of the pit of 
 perdition is wholly bad. These people of mixed 
 motives, mixed impulses, mixed actions, are the 
 men whom we must live with and work with and 
 make the best of. In this last familiar phrase, 
 " Make the best of them," we have the key to the 
 situation. Not in the lazy, conventional sense of 
 condoning and overlooking their faults, because it 
 is too much trouble to correct them, but in the 
 better sense of bringing out the best that there is 
 in others, by our own gentleness and purity and 
 sweetness, remembering our kinship with them 
 even in their weaknesses and sins. 
 
 LEARNING TO HOWL. 
 
 It is an old Spanish proverb, I believe, " He 
 who lives with wolves will soon learn to howl." 
 He who lives with the faults of his friends, and 
 counts them over and sorts them and weighs them 
 
THE MOSSRACK CORRESPONDENCE. 12/ 
 
 and measures them, will soon have equally grave 
 ones of his own, which his friends will be sure to 
 see, and which will make him positively unable to 
 cure them. There is nothing that so deteriorates 
 character as this undue looking after faults and 
 blemishes in others while we are blind to our own. 
 We may abhor meanness and stinginess in our 
 neighbor, and be able to give a hundred reasons 
 why he should give away more in charity, and see 
 many little things which indicate his smallness of 
 soul, and at the same time we may be so en- 
 grossed with one phase of meanness in him as 
 to forget another phase of meanness in ourselves. 
 We may abhor untruth so vehemently in some one 
 else that we shall forget to hate impurity in our- 
 selves. We may despise our neighbor for his 
 sharpness and trickery, and spread over our own 
 slackness and idleness and shiftlessness the cover- 
 let of "Thank God, I'm not a sharper!" The 
 idle, thriftless man can never reform the over- 
 shrewd speculator ; the impure man can never 
 lift the untruthful man out of the bog ; the gossip 
 is not fit to cure the miser of his selfishness. 
 There is only one way, after all, to reform the 
 world. Not by learning to howl at its faults, or 
 
128 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 to bark at its mistakes, but first to begin the work 
 of reformation with ourselves. We come back 
 inevitably to the old truth : " In order to make 
 the best of others we must first make the best of 
 ourselves." 
 
 WATCH THE BRAKES, HOLD TIGHT 
 REINS, START SLOW. 
 
 A Short Ser7non To Yointg Men. 
 
 I saw ;he above legend on a horse-car, the 
 other day, over the driver's head. I suppose it 
 was for the instruction of the driver, and yet it is 
 not without its metaphorical significance for every 
 young man. There is a sermon in a sentence, and 
 here ai" the divisions. 
 
 I St. " Watch the Brakes.'' Be sure that you 
 not only have the power to go, but the power to 
 stop going. Every well-regulated life has a brake 
 as well as a driving-wheel. The driver who can- 
 not stop his car at the desired crossing is quite as 
 helpless as the one who cannot start his horses. 
 A friend once told us that one of the most dis- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 29 
 
 tressing moments of his life was when he o-ot 
 started down a very long, steep hill, where there 
 was no tree or bush to break his descent, and 
 down which he was obliged to rush, with ever 
 increasing speed until he reached the foot. Yet 
 he only faintly typifies many a young man on the 
 moral downward grade, who has lost control of 
 the brakes. 
 
 2d. My second head, young brethren, is, 
 ''Hold Tight Rehisy Hold tight reins on pas- 
 sion, on pride, on love of acquisition, on extrava- 
 gance, on ambition. They are all good servants, 
 if you keep them where they belong, harnessed in 
 subjection to a high moral purpose and Christian 
 devotion. They are terrible masters, if they take 
 the bits in their mouth, and get beyond your 
 control. 
 
 3d. The third division of my sermon, dear 
 young friends, is, ''Start Slowr To start the 
 horses on a gallop is not only cruel to them, but 
 it shakes up the passengers, and very likely will 
 jolt the car off the track. There is time enough 
 to reach the end of the route, and keep up with 
 the schedule. There is no reason why you should 
 start life in a brown-stone house with six servants. 
 
130 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Your father did not start in this way. If he had, 
 he would not be living where he is now. There is 
 no reason why you should be worth a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars at the end of the first year in busi- 
 ness. As many a presidential candidate knows to 
 his sorrow, the ''early'' boom often kills the best 
 chance. The one who starts slow often wins 
 the prize. 
 
 THE SIGHER AND GROANER. 
 
 She is a very unpleasant person to have about. 
 I beg the ladies' pardon for using the feminine 
 pronoun, since she may belong to either sex, but 
 is a little more likely to belong to the sex that 
 neither votes nor crows. If she is a man, she is 
 apt to become a growler and grumbler, who, per- 
 haps, is quite as bad in his way as a sigher and 
 groaner. If the aforementioned sigher and groan- 
 er is found in the home, she is decidedly more 
 depressing than a gloomy "spell of weather." 
 Like the contentious woman, with whom Solomon 
 was so well acquainted, she is a continual drop- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. I3I 
 
 ping on a very rainy day. Mrs. Gummidge is 
 very entertaining in Dickens' pages, but decidedly 
 the reverse when she is found in the family circle. 
 She distributes the moist gloom of her teary sighs 
 over the whole household. Even the small boy 
 cannot resist the depressing influence, and can 
 only express his feelings and let off his repressed 
 emotions by a few extra capers in the back yard. 
 When he grows a little larger, alas ! he escapes 
 the heavy atmosphere of such a home, too often, 
 by entering the saloon or the brothel. If the 
 sigher and groaner happens to be found in a 
 business office, as clerk or saleswoman, you would 
 think that all the weight of a vast business rested 
 upon her shoulders. A little unusual labor, and 
 the sighs and groans are brought into requisition 
 to make others miserable and show herself an 
 overworked martyr. 
 
 Dear sigher and groaner, your little scheme 
 does not wear v;cll. It soon becomes threadbare. 
 No one will pity ycu any the more, or love you 
 half so well, for this respira Ty exhibition of your 
 woes. After a while it excites only contempt. 
 Do your duty cheerfully, bear your burden hap- 
 pily. The sighs and groans and the discontent 
 
132 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 which they express only add to life's trouble, and 
 make your own burden and that of other people 
 more grievous to be borne. 
 
 STUFFING A DEAD HORNET. 
 
 A wise saying of Josh Billings was, " Thare iz 
 no more real satisfackshun in laying up in yure 
 buzzum an injury than thare iz in stuffing a dead 
 hornet, who haz stung you, and keeping him tew 
 look at." 
 
 This is just as true as though Plato or Socrates 
 had expressed it in classic phrase. How many 
 people have a large and varied and exceedingly 
 unpleasant assortment of these stuffed hornets on 
 hand. There is an old church quarrel for in- 
 stance. It was dead and ought to have been 
 buried twenty years ago, but half the church mem- 
 bers have stuffed the old dead hornets, and keep 
 them to look at from time to time. There is our 
 old personal grievance ! Sombody slighted us, 
 did not return our greeting, uttered a disparaging 
 remark about our ability, interfered with our busi- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 33 
 
 ness success, beat us in politics when we ran for 
 alderman ! That happened long ago ? Oh, yes, 
 but the hornet which stung us so badly has been 
 stuffed and set up by a skilful taxidermist, and, 
 really, after the lapse of all these years, looks just 
 as natural as ever. One evil thing is, that these 
 hornets, though dead, retain their sting. This is 
 just about as sharp as when first it pierced us, 
 and, by looking at the stuffed insect, we recall the 
 old pain. 
 
 What is the " satisfackshun," as Josh Billings 
 calls it, in laying up in one's memory a dead in- 
 jury that should have been buried out of sight 
 when it died ? 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE TEAKETTLE. 
 
 I have an impression that an admirable lecture 
 might be written on the above subject, by one 
 who had the time and ability to devote to it. 
 There speeds the railway train flying along its 
 iron highway at the rate of a mile a minute, yet 
 it is moved by the same power — intensified, rein- 
 
134 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 forced and harnessed down — that Hfts the lid of 
 the teakettle. 
 
 There again is the modern mammoth, the 
 steamship, ploughing its way through the yield- 
 ing water, almost as rapidly, bridging the conti- 
 nents in six days, and yet its motive power is the 
 same that sings the song of the teakettle. For 
 generations before James Watt was born, the ket- 
 tle sung upon the hob, but the ages were waiting 
 for the teakettle and James Watt to come to- 
 gether. It is altogether probable that some 
 equally homely and commonplace article is wait- 
 ing until the full time shall come to teach the 
 world an equally useful lesson. 
 
 Another thing that I learn from the teakettle 
 is, that Providence is never in a hurry. It can 
 always wait for James Watt to be born and grow 
 up. The inventions that have revolutionized the 
 world have none of them come before they were 
 needed. When the new world was discovered 
 and had begun to be peopled, when trade and 
 commerce had outgrown their early swaddling- 
 clothes, when a new force was needed to do the 
 rapidly increasing work of the world, then came 
 the new power to supplement the insufficient 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 35 
 
 brawn and sinew of man and beast. But I need 
 not pursue these thoughts further. I would rec- 
 ommend to each reader to listen to the song of 
 the teakettle. Then let him do his own mor- 
 alizing. 
 
 THE SENSE OF HUMOR. 
 
 It is a vast misfortune if the sense of humor is 
 left out of one's composition. Everything be- 
 comes distorted to the man who never allows the 
 sidelight of humor to wrinkle the corner of his 
 eyes, or to draw up the corner of his mouth. The 
 lack of this sense prevents a correct judgment of 
 men and matters, and is especially characteristic 
 of narrow and provincial minds, even though they 
 may be sharp and intense in some directions. 
 
 Matthew Arnold, unable to understand the 
 humorous persiflage of certain Western papers, 
 and making up his mind, in consequence, that 
 America is the home of braggart Philistines, is a 
 conspicuous example of this unfortunate lack. 
 
136 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Many a controversy is made bitter and acrimoni- 
 ous because a remark that was at first made with 
 the twinkle of the eye, or a quizzical expression 
 that was both commentary and glossary, is 
 repeated, or read, without these accessories, and 
 sounds brutal and cold-blooded. 
 
 An editor is especially likely to be thus mis- 
 judged, for since his utterances are read by scores 
 of thousands, he will be sure to be misunderstood, 
 unless he deals simply in plain facts and didactic 
 remarks thereon, or else makes his jokes as ob- 
 vious as a patent medicine advertisement on the 
 side of a barn. Well, there is nothing for him to 
 do but to be misunderstood occasionally, or else to 
 draw a long face, and use a dull pen, since he can- 
 not send out a skilful practitioner with every copy 
 of his paper, to perform the surgical operation 
 that is sometimes necessary, nor can he ever tell 
 with just which copy of the paper it is necessary 
 to send the surgeon. 
 
 I hear much about a sixth sense which is being 
 slowly developed, though there is a difference of 
 opinion as to what this shall be called. How 
 would it do to add to the familiar five, the sense 
 of humor? 
 
THE MOSSDACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 37 
 
 THE POMPOUS MAN. 
 
 There he goes along the street now ! I do not 
 know his name, but think I can tell you some- 
 thing about him, nevertheless. His gait reveals 
 his character. Some people think you can tell a 
 man's character by his handwriting ; I think you 
 can tell far more about him by his walk. In 
 the most literal sense, a man's "walk and conver- 
 sation" are indicative of his character. His Pom- 
 posity often wears good clothes and a hat perched 
 a trifle on one side, and as he swings along the 
 street, with a condescending nod occasionally be- 
 stowed to the right or to the left, you feel sure 
 that he says to himself, "What a fine figure I am 
 cutting! " 
 
 Well, such a man would be hardly worth hold- 
 ing up to ridicule were it not for certain base 
 moral qualities which usually go with this out- 
 ward show. It is needless to say that such a man 
 lacks the first Christian grace — humility ; he is 
 always thinking of himself " more highly than he 
 ought to think," and if all the world does not 
 share his opinion, he is apt to dislike all the 
 
138 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 world. If he happens to belong to the church, he 
 is very sure to believe that his brethren and sis- 
 ters do not appreciate him, and soon, very likely, 
 becomes an Ishmaelite, wandering about from one 
 church to another, each of which strangely refuses 
 to recognize his wonderful gifts. For the same 
 reason he is likely to become a turncoat in poli- 
 tics, it is so difficult to find any political party 
 that recognizes him at his own value, and he be- 
 comes disliked and unpopular wherever he is 
 known. If the pompous man could only buy him- 
 self at his neighbor's valuation and sell himself at 
 his own, he would immediately amass a large for- 
 tune, but there is no danger of his becoming rich 
 in this way. 
 
 MEAN STREAKS. 
 
 Some very good people, in a general way, have 
 their virtues quite overbalanced by a certain mean 
 fibre of disposition or character which runs 
 through their lives. They may be entirely uncon- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 39 
 
 scious of the "mean streak " ; in fact, they f^ener- 
 ally are, but their friends are in no way oblivious 
 to it. It is like a horrid discord in the midst of 
 sweet harmony, an acrid taste in luscious fruit, an 
 unsightly object in a beautiful landscape. It 
 spoils, or, at least, greatly injures, all the rest, 
 which would otherwise be admirable. Some- 
 times this mean streak is a lack of generosity, 
 sometimes it is a lack of charity, quite as often as 
 otherwise it is an ill-natured tongue, a tongue 
 that delights to speak sharp words, or galling 
 words, or, in some way, to plant a thorn in 
 another's pillow, by reminding him of some defect 
 or mischance. Very likely this same thorn- 
 planter may have a most lovely smile, she may 
 be really benevolent to the natives of Borrioboola 
 Gha. She may even be ready to watch with a 
 friend in sickness, or sympathize when real trou- 
 ble comes, but she cannot restrain the cuttina: 
 remark, she cannot forbear to give the timely 
 "dig," she unmercifully rejoices in a kind of 
 moral (or immoral) pin sticking. Most of us are 
 anxious and careful to have our characters rieht 
 in the main; let us be equally mindful of the 
 mean streaks. 
 
140 TITE M0SS15ACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 IF. 
 
 "He would make a capital preacher //he would 
 drop that mannerism." "He would be a fine 
 lecturer //"he had a different voice." " He would 
 make a most excellent teacher if ha had a more 
 commanding presence." How often we hear such 
 remarks made, and how futile they are ! There is 
 an "if" about every man who lives in this imper- 
 fect world. Such remarks, when simmered down 
 to their real meaning, often are as tautological as 
 though one said, " Such and such a one would be 
 perfect if h.c were only perfect." Or, "In such 
 another character little would be left to be desired 
 //"he were only an angel." To be sure, dear critic, 
 there is very little doubt about this proposition, 
 and there is as little that is novel or startling 
 about it. Very likely you, yourself, will be im- 
 proved when you are so happy as to reach the 
 fields Elysian. Remember, too, that these "ifs" 
 stand often for individuality of character. The 
 "if" differentiates the man from the common 
 herd, and uniformity and conventionality would be 
 gained at the expense of originality and power. 
 
TIIK MOSSBACK CORRKSPONDENCE. 141 
 
 Do not find so much fault with the mannerism of 
 your minister. It may be only the unfortunate 
 manifestation of real ability. Take away that "'if " 
 and you would lose not a little of the man. In 
 fact, few men would be good for much were there 
 not in their lives an "if" of this sort at which the 
 carping world might croak 
 
 ANOTHER KIND OF "IF." 
 
 There is another kind of an "if" which usually 
 relates not to the mere externals and mannerisms 
 of the man, but to his moral character which must 
 be treated in a very different way. It is worse to 
 cover up serious defects with an "if" than it is to 
 exaggerate trifling idiosyncrasies by the use of the 
 same little word. Yet it is done quite as often. 
 
 " He would be a fine fellow, if he would only 
 let Hquor alone." But ah! he will not let liquor 
 alone, and he is very far from being a fine fellow, 
 "He would be a capital companion, ifyow could 
 only believe what he says." But alas! he is a 
 
142 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 confirmed liar, and his is a false and despicable 
 character ; he is anything but a capital companion. 
 "He would be such a gentleman, if ho. only wasn't 
 such a rake." But if he is a rake he can never be 
 a gentleman. There is no such thing as making 
 a fine fellow out of a drunkard, or a capital com 
 panion out of a liar, or a gentleman out of a rake. 
 There is much more than a single "if" between 
 such characters — they are diametrically opposed. 
 The aev^il himself is popularly supposed to have 
 some admirable qualities, such as industry and 
 perseverance, but these make him none the less a 
 demon, but only the more fiendish. The fact is, 
 all such moral defects, which are not merely sur- 
 face idiosyncrasies, but matters of the heart and 
 character, eat into and eat out the life of the 
 whole man. They are not pimples on the skin, 
 which in a kind-hearted observer should excite no 
 remark ; they are indications of rottenness and 
 disease in the very heart. We do a wrong to 
 society, and especially to youth, when we mini- 
 mize and gloss over such defects. We should 
 never speak of them as the peculiarities of a 
 "good fellow" or a "gentleman." 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 143 
 
 THAT EMBARRASSING QUESTION. 
 
 " Don't you know who I am ? " 
 
 "Ahem! yes, really, I ought to know you; bad 
 memory for names," etc. 
 
 How often the above little dialogue has been 
 repeated ! Do have mercy, dear reader, upon the 
 poor man who cannot recollect your name, and do 
 not put him on the rack. He does not know or 
 love you any less, simply because he cannot call 
 you by your patronymic, and he will be likely to 
 love you a good deal better in the future, if you 
 don't ask him that question. 
 
 You compel him to show either a seeming rude 
 forgetfulness, or tempt him to prevaricate and 
 deceive, by saying, " Oh, ah yes ! why, how do you 
 do .? " 
 
 He will probably excuse this deception to his 
 own conscience by making himself believe that he 
 remembers having seen you somewhere and some- 
 time in the past. Then he will strain his ears 
 and ask numerous leading questions, until he has 
 found out your name ; but, really, it is cruel to 
 make him suffer so. " Let me see, how do you 
 
144 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 spell your name?" said one man, who was thus 
 put on the rack, to his inquisitor. "I spell it 
 J-o-n-e-s," was the freezing reply, which swept like 
 a Dakota blizzard across the path of conversation. 
 The more excellent way, when you thus ap- 
 proach a casual acquaintance, is to pity his defect- 
 ive memory, and say, " How do you do } I am 
 very glad to see you again. My name is Jones, 
 and I met you year before last, on Broadway, near 
 the Battery." 
 
 "WHAT'S THE GOOD WORD.? 
 
 >> 
 
 Another question which no sane man should 
 ever ask is the one which stands at the head of 
 this article. It is not only embarrassing, but it 
 is meaningless ; in fact, it is embarrassing, be- 
 cause it is senseless. If you wish to know what 
 the news is, why not ask the question ? If you 
 wish to know how your friend is, why not say, 
 "How do you do.-*" But what in the world is the 
 poor fellow to say when you ask him " What's the 
 good word.?" 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 45 
 
 With few exceptions all words are good, if used 
 in proper connections. There is hardly any an- 
 swer that can be given to this interrogatory which 
 is not as inane and senseless as the question it- 
 self. 
 
 What shall your friend say.? "I don't know." 
 "Pretty well, I thank you." "About as usual." 
 
 He is very apt to make one of the above incon- 
 gruous replies, simply because your question gives 
 him no scope for an intelligent answer. 
 
 The only way I know to treat you, my friend, is 
 to get ahead of you, and when I next see you 
 coming, I shall have my mouth open and all ready 
 to plump at you the question, " What's the good 
 word.?" 
 
 KEEPING THE WINDOWS CLEAN. 
 
 I often see, as I walk along the city streets 
 early in the morning, the boys busy with sponge 
 and polishing powder cleaning the windows pre- 
 paratory to the day's shopping. The larger and 
 handsomer the window the more pains, I notice, 
 
146 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 is taken to make it as transparent and flawless as 
 soap and water and vigorous work can make it. 
 So, also, if the goods behind the window are par- 
 ticularly rich and elegant, the window-cleaner 
 puts to more strength, that no speck or foul spot 
 may prevent their being seen to the best advan- 
 tage. How many of us might learn a lesson from 
 the shopkeepers ! How little pains we take to 
 have the windows through which men look in 
 upon our lives speckless ! Many scholars, erudite 
 and learned, are never able to give utterance to 
 their knowledge, and the world is none the wiser 
 for what they know. One whose whole soul 
 glows with oratorical fire cannot convince an audi- 
 ence by "dumb oratory." Many a Christian 
 whose heart, at times, seems filled with the love 
 of God, always has an impenetrable curtain be- 
 tween his neighbors and friends and his own re- 
 ligious life. People have an impression that 
 within the light-house tower the light is shining, 
 but it is a veiled light. Or, worse still, the win- 
 dow of his soul is befouled and soiled with the 
 flecks of a worldly life, or the passing teams of a 
 sharp competition have spattered it with the mud 
 of business rivalry, and these specks on the win- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 14/ 
 
 dow only are seen, and not the rich treasure of 
 mind and soul that lie behind. There is a duty 
 devolving upon every Christian, not only to see 
 that his heart is right, but that the windows 
 through which the world looks in upon him are 
 clear and transparent. 
 
 TRUE POLITENESS. 
 
 True politeness, after all, is a matter of the 
 heart rather than of conventionalities. It can 
 never be learned from books of etiquette , and 
 the dancing master is no more likely to be able to 
 possess it, or to teach it than the coal heaver. 
 A youth clad in patent leather pumps and the 
 tightest of well-fitting kids may be far more rude 
 and impolite than the country bumkin with hay- 
 seed in his hair. In fact, he is more likely to be 
 the real bore, since he has been all his life on the 
 wrong tack, polishing the outside and letting the 
 inside go foul and neglected. You cannot make 
 a brass coal-scuttle into a silver vase by rubbing 
 the outside with silver polish. This is a mistake 
 
148 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 which many of our young people make. They 
 think if they can only learn some of the tricks 
 and conventionalities of society, if they study one 
 of those most useless of all volumes, called books 
 of etiquette, and learn to eat with their forks, 
 and pick up a lady's handkerchief, and carry an 
 immense and knobby silver-headed cane grace- 
 fully, then their education is complete, and they 
 are ready to graduate from the school of polite 
 society. No ide:: could be more false or silly. 
 They have not learned the alphabet of true polite- 
 ness. There is something more to a gentleman 
 than a gloved hand, and a polished shoe, and 
 immaculate coat, and a suave manner. No per- 
 son can be truly polite who is not a lady or gen- 
 tleman at heart, who is not ready at all times to 
 do a kind deed for others, out of a genuine inter- 
 est in and regard for them. Such a person will 
 be just as polite to the weary old grandmother of 
 fourscore as to the blooming damsel of onescore ; 
 in fact, he will be more polite, since the aged one 
 more needs his kindly attention and interest. 
 Neither Lord Chesterfield nor Beau Brummell is 
 the true type of the gentleman, but rather, Mr. 
 Greatheart, or one of the Cherrible brothers. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 49 
 
 THE ANXIETY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "I do not need to do any worrying in this life," 
 said one friend, good-naturedly, to another ; " my 
 wife attends to the anxiety department in our 
 household." I am quite sure that this particular 
 friend does not suffer, but I have an impression 
 that in many households this "anxiety depart- 
 ment" is overfilled. Worrying, if indulged, gets 
 to be a passion, and, just as some persons, with 
 unconscious irony, say they ''enjoy poor health," 
 so there are others who are never quite happy 
 unless they are miserable over some real or imag- 
 inary trouble. 
 
 If they only made themselves miserable it 
 would not be of so much consequence; but the 
 fact is, they frequently succeed in annoying and 
 exasperating other people who do not enjoy being 
 miserable. There is no pleasure in worrying all 
 by one's self. Somebody else must be dragged 
 into the anxious circle to make the enjoyment 
 complete. Another unfortunate thing about this 
 anxiety department — it is constantly enlarging. 
 
 It begins, perhaps, with the baby's croup, but 
 
150 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 it extends its domain, until it takes in all the chil- 
 dren a;id the husband and servants and the whole 
 neighborhood ; so that neighbor Jones cannot 
 hang out her clothes on Tuesday, instead of Mon- 
 day, and neighbor Brown cannot go out to the 
 barn ten minutes later in the morning than is his 
 wont, without giving occasion for anxiety and 
 remark. 
 
 I acknowledge that undue anxiety is often 
 but an excrescence on other most admirable 
 qualities — care and thoughtfulness, and loving 
 self-sacrifice — but, on that account, it is even the 
 more to be avoided ; a flaw in an otherwise per- 
 fect gem is the more noticeable. Let us curtail 
 the anxiety department. 
 
 MAKE YOUR WIFE YOUR BAR-KEEPER. 
 
 One of the best, as well as one of the shortest, 
 temperance lectures I ever read is the following 
 from an address once delivered by C. T. Camp- 
 bell, at Maysville, Kentucky : 
 
 " Bar-keepers in this city pay, on an average, $2 
 per gallon for whiskey. One gallon contains an 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 151 
 
 average of sixty-five drinks, and at ten cents a 
 drink, the poor man pays $6.50 per gallon for his 
 whiskey. In other words, he pays $2 for the 
 whiskey and $4.50 to a man for handing it over 
 the bar. 
 
 "Make your wife your bar-keeper. Lend her 
 two dollars to buy a gallon of whiskey for a be- 
 ginning, and every time you want a drink, go to 
 her and pay her ten cents for it. By the time 
 you have drank a gallon, she will have ^6.50, or 
 enough money to refund the $2 borrowed of you> 
 to pay for another gallon of liquor, and have a 
 balance of $2.50. She will be able to conduct 
 future operations on her own capital, and when 
 you become an inebriate, unable to support your- 
 self, shunned and despised by all respectable per- 
 sons, your wife will have enough money to keep 
 you until you get ready to fill a drunkard's grave." 
 
 IN FAVOR OF RUTS. 
 
 No more solemn thought can come to the 
 young person, who ever takes the trouble to think 
 at all, than that contained in the fact of the 
 
152 THE MOSSIJACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 inevitable tendency which every human being de- 
 velops to deepen the lines of the character with 
 which he starts in life. As surely as the drop- 
 ping water wears away the stone, do the passing 
 years groove our lives into well-worn ruts. He 
 who may have the greatest horror of ruts, and 
 who resolves that he will be original, even if he is 
 odd and outre in attaining originality, gets into 
 ruts which are all the more disagreeable because 
 they are original. As some one has said, " There 
 is something to be said even in favor of ruts. 
 Rut is nearly allied to route." A rut is not so 
 bad, after all, if it is smooth and easily travelled, 
 and leads to a good goal. What we need to re- 
 member is the importance of having our rut lead 
 in the right direction. If our rut is only duty, 
 made easy and smooth by constant repetitions ; if 
 it is generosity and truth and purity, love to God 
 and fellowman become a second nature ; we need 
 not fear wearing too deeply these grooves through 
 which flow all right affections. One can scarcely 
 do a thing well until he does it half unconscious- 
 ly. The apprentice sweats and fumes over his 
 work, and then boggles it. The master-workman 
 hardly realizes that he is handling his tools, but 
 
THE MOSSIiACK CORRESPONDENCE. I 53 
 
 never makes a mistake. Don't be so much afraid 
 of ruts, young friends, as of getting into the 
 wrong rut. 
 
 MONSTROSITIES OF GRACE. 
 
 The child was never born who, at the age of 
 two years, could reason about philosophy and talk 
 of physics and metaphysics, who could quote Aris- 
 totle and discuss the merits of the Baconian sys- 
 tem. Should we see such a child we should con- 
 sider it a monstrosity and be very unpleasantly 
 impressed by such unnatural precocity. Let us 
 remember that God makes as few monstrosities in 
 the realm of grace as in the realm of nature. He 
 does not make unnaturally precocious Christians 
 any more than unnaturally precocious children. It 
 would be unnatural, not to say absurd, for a Chris- 
 tian of a week to say with the aged Paul : " I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I 
 have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up 
 for me a crown of glory." But it is perfectly 
 natural and fitting for him to ask, "What wilt 
 
154 '^'"E MOSSHACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Thou have me to do?" Too many of us desire to 
 be prodigies, or even monstrosities, and some are 
 never willing to begin to grow becaus' they can- 
 not become full grown in an hour. We must 
 learn the deep philosophy of Christ's words, 
 " Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God 
 as a little child he shall not enter therein." Wc 
 must be content to be children in Christ before 
 we can be grown men in Him. We must be will- 
 ing to creep before we can walk. He who would 
 penetrate the mysteries hid from the foundation 
 of the world must first take pains to learn the 
 alphabet of Christian living. The only place for 
 prodigies and monstrosities is a dime museum ; 
 there is little room for them in common life and 
 still less in the Christian life, and in the realm of 
 spiritual things. 
 
 MANHOOD TO THE SQUARE INCH. 
 
 "There is more manhood to the square inch in 
 the young man who swings the scythe in the mea- 
 dow than in the one who dawdles a cane on the 
 
THE MOSSBACK tOKRESPONDENCE. 1 55 
 
 boulcvardc," sagely remarked a wise speaker at a 
 recent gathering. His aphorism contains more 
 than enough salt to keep it sweet. There is no 
 great objection to the dude considered simply as 
 such. Often he is not positively vicious. He is 
 too busy considering the cut of his waistcoat and 
 the width of his trowser-legs and the shape of his 
 finger-nails and the polish of hie shoes to have 
 much time or brain to spare for real upright or 
 downright villainy. In one aspect he is a very 
 harmless individual, and, as in the case of the cel- 
 ebrated Mr. Toots, what he does and says is of 
 "no consequence." In another aspect, however, 
 his advent among us is portentous and baleful, 
 and just so far as he is admired and imitated by 
 American youth, a lack of moral fibre and a 
 degeneration of American stock is indicated. In 
 the graphic words of the speaker whose sentence 
 stands at the beginning of this article, " He has 
 very little manhood^'to the square inch." Think 
 of young Abraham Lincoln in a loud suit of 
 checked goods, a flashy necktie and a monocle, 
 tipping his hat back so as to show a straggling 
 curl beneath the rim! Think of Ben Franklin, 
 accompanied by a great dog (in dude vernacular a 
 
156 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 "piirp"), sticking his elbows out at right angles 
 to his person and swaggering down Washington 
 street or Broadway ! The very incongruity of 
 associating such manners with men of serious and 
 earnest purpose shows how diametrically opposed 
 to real earnestness are such characteristics ; in 
 fact, how little manhood there is about them. 
 As a disease, dudism, while it is held up to con- 
 stant ridicule, may not be alarming ; as a symp- 
 tom of prevailing and increasing effeminacy and 
 lack of manly character, it may be no trifle. 
 What young Americans need to cultivate, is 
 "more manhood to the square inch." 
 
 SLAMMING THE DOOR. 
 
 A suggestive little squib, with a moral, is going 
 the rounds of the papers. Bessie and Willie over- 
 hear a quarrel between their parents. " Which of 
 them is getting the worst of it .? " asks Bessie. " I 
 don't know )et," answers Willie; "I am just wait- 
 ing to see which of them will slam the door going 
 out. " Willie had found a better and more univcr- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 57 
 
 sal test of human frailty than he knew. The man 
 who gets the worst of it usually slams the door. 
 To "get mad" is not only a sign of weakness, but 
 a sign of defeat as well. The successful person 
 can afford to keep his temper and wait for time to 
 vindicate his course. Some people slam the door 
 in the newspaper with a vicious, ill-tempered arti- 
 cle. It helps their cause not one whit, but indi- 
 cates that they have had recourse to a defeated 
 man's last resort, an ill-natured fling. Others 
 metaphorically slam the church door. They get 
 angry with a brother member, call him names, 
 provoke a quarrel, and perhaps a serious division 
 results. The man who has a good cause can af- 
 ford to be patient. He can meet his enemies' 
 arguments, if it is worth while, or he can let them 
 go for old Father Time to bury in oblivion. He 
 is not greatly ruffled or annoyed even by slander 
 and abuse, for he knows that a barking dog is es- 
 timated pretty accurately at his true value in this 
 practical world, and that the best poultice for the 
 wounds caused by hard words is silence. Noth- 
 ing is gained by slamming the door. The angry 
 man forgets that his opponent's fingers are not in 
 the crack of the door and that the sound neither 
 
158 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 hurts him nor destroys his arguments nor heals 
 the pain he has inflicted, but only serves to make 
 the slammer ridiculous and indicates that he is 
 worsted in the combat. 
 
 SO LIKE THEMSELVES. 
 
 I frequently hear it remarked, " How much this 
 man is like Mr. So-and-so!'^ "That boy is very 
 like his father!" etc. I do not so often hear it 
 said, "How much he acts like himself!" and yet, 
 in this seemingly self-evident remark there is a 
 profound truth. The boy is not only father of the 
 man, the boy is the man, and the man is the boy. 
 The boy often looks very unlike the man ; but 
 there is a subtle chara.'er resemblance, which 
 the years cannot efface. This continuity of per- 
 sonality, if I may so express it, is illustrated in 
 a hundred trivial ways. Here is one man who is 
 always five minutes late in coming into church, 
 never any earlier, and rarely any later. There is 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 59 
 
 no conceivable reason why he should not be on 
 time, once in a while at least, or why he should 
 not sometimes be ten minutes late, instead of five. 
 But he never is. Here is another good brother 
 who is always in his seat five minutes before the 
 organ sounds its first note, and we should about 
 as soon expect to find the old church overturned 
 and dancing on its spire, as to know him to be 
 late. 
 
 We do not need to see a friend's features in 
 order to recognize him. His gait, the back of his 
 head, the peculiar wrinkles in his old coat, have all 
 contracted something of his personality. They are 
 all ''like him'\ If we move away from our boy- 
 hood's home and come back after twoscore years, 
 there is the old man with gray locks and wrinkled 
 brow, but the same man whom we left forty years 
 ago, thriftless or thrifty, miserly or generous, 
 prompt or tardy, neat or slovenly, as he was then. 
 The lines of character are more deeply graven, 
 that is all ; for men at every period of their lives 
 are so much like themselves. If the acts of one 
 year had no influence in the next, if we really 
 began anew with the new year, these considera- 
 tions would be of comparatively little importance ; 
 
l6o THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 but this continuity of life, this influence of the 
 present upon the future, and of the past upon the 
 present, this freights the acts of every day with a 
 vast significance. 
 
 GAG — BY WELL-DOING. 
 
 In his second letter, Peter gives the Christians 
 of his day some most excellent advice when he 
 tells them to put to silence by well-doing the igno- 
 rance of foolish men. More literally translated, 
 his advice reads : " For this is the will of God 
 that by your well-doing ye should gag the stolid 
 ignorance of foolish persons." In fact, this kind 
 of a gag is the only weapon, offensive, or defen- 
 sive, which Christianity has ever successfully used 
 against its enemies. "Christianity is running 
 down and running out," say these enemies. "It 
 is a mass of superstitions. Its only object is to 
 scare men into false pretences. Its ministers are 
 corrupt, its laymen are hypocrites and its Sunday 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. l6l 
 
 school superintendents have fled to Canada." So 
 the infidel talks, while Christianity goes calmly on 
 its way, gagging, by its good deeds and its benefi- 
 cent influence, this stolid ignorance of its fool- 
 ish decriers. Every hospital built by Christian 
 charity, and very few have not thus been built, is 
 a gag in the mouth of infidelity. Every mission- 
 ary society, and every dollar given to missions, 
 gag U\G charge that Christians are wholly selfish 
 and self-seeking. All the charitable organizations 
 and evangelistic agencies with which our country 
 abounds, gag the charge that a Christian cares 
 nothing for his neighbor, so long as his own little 
 soul is saved. Every earnest prayer-meeting gags 
 the charge that there is no more fellowship and 
 brotherhood between professed Christians than 
 between any other body of men. Every triumph- 
 ant death-bed scene, every reaching forth and 
 hastening unto the glory that shall be revealed, 
 gags the charge that there is nothing in the re- 
 ligion of Christ to sooth and comfort, nothing but 
 an appeal to supernatural fears of eternal woe. 
 
 Here is a suggestion to be applied to personal 
 slander and detraction. We shall all meet with it 
 sooner or later. Idle gossips will tell tales. The 
 
1 62 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 best -intended actions will be perverted. Our mo- 
 tives will be questioned. Does any one say that 
 he has a persistent enemy who is continually slan- 
 dering him .'* Gag that slanderer. It is the 
 Bible rule. As the burglar puts a pad in his vic- 
 tim's mouth, so that he cannot cry out, thus 
 should we treat our slanderer, only gag him ac- 
 cording to the Scripture method — with good 
 deeds. Talk little in refutation of what he says, 
 unless silence will be construed as an admission 
 of his charges ; but go about daily business to- 
 morrow light-heartedly and cheerfully ; earn hon- 
 est repose by honest work ; do unto others as you 
 would that they should do to you ; speak kindly 
 and charitably of every one, even of that slanderer ; 
 indulge in no sneers or flings ; let every action be 
 honorable and above-board ; be generous and sym- 
 pathetic and kind, and, before this year upon 
 which we have entered has come to an end, there 
 will be a gag in that enemy's mouth so large 
 that he can never utter another harmful slander 
 against you. 
 
THE MOSS13ACK CORRESPONDENCE. 163 
 
 THE GIFT OF DISCONTINUANCE. 
 
 A Short Sermou Out of Church. 
 Beloved brethren and sisters, the doctrine of 
 the saints' perseverance affords much comfort to 
 the Calvinist, and the grace of continuance is fre- 
 quently urged by Calvinist and Arminian alike, 
 but I have to urge upon you to day the grace of 
 discontinuance. My first head relateth to the 
 prayer-meeting, where this grace peculiarly need- 
 eth to be exercised. It is far better to say one 
 th ng and stop before remarking, "This reminds 
 me," than it is to be reminded of so many things 
 that at length the clock reminds the audience that 
 it is high time for you to be reminded of nothing 
 further. It is not at all necessary to expound a 
 whole body of divinity in every prayer-meeting, or 
 even to elucidate exhaustively a difficult passage 
 of Holy Writ, and, as for informing the Lord in 
 public prayer so minutely concerning all mundane 
 things, it is much better to ask for one thing that 
 you really want and then have done. 
 
 My second division relateth to the pulpit. 
 Here, too, is an excellent place for the exercise of 
 
164 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 this rare gift. If, as high authority puttcth it, 
 few souls have been converted after the first half- 
 hour of the sermon, would it not be better to stop 
 then and use that excellent and eloquent perora- 
 tion the next time? 
 
 Thirdly, beloved friends, my theme has refer- 
 ence to the platform, where this grace has great 
 need of exemplification. Many of us (I use the 
 pronoun in the first person by way of confession 
 with sorrow and regret) who would not filch an- 
 other's pocket-book, or even abstract his handker- 
 chief, have been sadly wanting in conscience about 
 stealing the time of the poor man who follows us 
 on the programme. 
 
 If we have no regard for a long-suffering audi- 
 ence, let us hereafter have pity on the man who 
 makes the last speech of the evening, and discon- 
 tinue our own remarks while yet a fraction of the 
 attention of the wearied audience can be accorded 
 to him. 
 
 And now, dearly beloved, my application shall 
 be an exhortation which illustrates our theme. 
 Let us always and everywhere stop when we get 
 through. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. l6$ 
 
 CONCERNING OVERCOATS. 
 
 Another Short Sermon Out of Church. 
 
 Paul, my beloved brethren, had something to 
 say to his friends about the cloak he had left at 
 Troas. If he had lived in America he would have 
 worn an overcoat, and we do not see why we may 
 not preach a short sermon on the overcoat. Not 
 the overcoat that was left at Troas, but the one 
 you brought to church last Sunday You took it 
 off during the first singing and you carefully put 
 it on during the singing of the last hymn, and at 
 the same time you struggled into your overshoes 
 and stood up your umbrella in a convenient posi- 
 tion to grab when the benediction should be pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 Now, beloved brethren, this overcoat is no^ only 
 an outer garment, but it is a stumbling-block as 
 well. In the first place, it destroys the appear- 
 ance of reverence which I know you feel in your 
 inmost heart for the house and worship of God. 
 There is no more reason why you should use the 
 time devoted to the closing hymn for dressing 
 than the time devoted to reading the text. One 
 
1 66 THE MOSSHACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 is just as much a part of the worship as the other. 
 
 In the second place, the overcoat distracts the 
 attention of others. One can hardly follow the 
 closing prayer or join in the blessing with which 
 the service closes, if his neighbor is shuffling into 
 a pair of tight-fitting rubbers, or throwing his 
 arms about like a windmill, in his efforts to get 
 into a refractory overcoat. 
 
 In the third place, dearly beloved, you really 
 save very little time by any such haste. You 
 will not get home more than eight-tenths of a 
 minute later by waiting with bowed head in rever- 
 ent pause, after the benediction is pronounced, 
 before putting on that outer garment. 
 
 And now, dear brethren, I v/ill bring my short 
 homily to a close by begging you to leave that 
 overcoat undisturbed until the service is wholly 
 finished, and the time has come to depart from 
 the house of God 
 
 POLITENESS AS A NATIONAL TRAIT. 
 
 Politeness will never become thoroughly accli- 
 mated in America until rudeness, brusqueness 
 
THE MOSSIJACK CORKESl'ONDENCE. 1 6/ 
 
 and exhibitions of anger come under the social 
 ban, and impoliteness is considered "bad form." 
 Even religion would find a powerful auxiliary in 
 fashion if the fashion set the right way. Some 
 semi-civilized and comparatively unenlightened 
 nations have much to teach us in this respect. 
 For instance, we are not inclined to place Japan 
 in the same rank with America, and we are fain to 
 believe that there is not so much purity, intelli- 
 gence, or sturdy virtue, there as here, but, in many 
 respects, America might well go to school to 
 Japan. A missionary who is connected with a 
 large girls' school in that land, writing home, 
 says, " I have not heard a single girl complain. 
 Indeed, I ought to say right here that the Japan- 
 ese consider it very much out of character to show 
 the least temper. Even under great provocation, 
 I have yet to see an angry man, woman, or child, 
 in Japan. I presume they do get angry, for they 
 are very human, but they do not show it very 
 often." What teacher in a boarding-school in 
 America, either for boys or girls, could say as 
 much .-* 
 
 To be polite, kind and gentle for conventional 
 reasons is not, to be sure, to appeal to the highest 
 
1 68 THE MOSSBACK CORKESrONDENCE. 
 
 motive, but it is an auxiliary motive worth con- 
 sidering. When Americans have crystallized into 
 the American, and the national type becomes 
 more fixed and permanent, let us hope that one 
 distinguishing mark will be greater suavity^ 
 urbanity and politeness. A lurking suspicion 
 remains in the minds of many people that in 
 order to be honest one must be more or less rude 
 and angular. It might just as well be said that 
 in order to be substantially and honestly built, a 
 piece of furniture must be full of sharp, ugly 
 corners, to stick into the passer-by. It will be a 
 step forward in our civilization when we learn as a 
 nation that politeness is wholly consistent with 
 genuineness, and that a gentleman is even more 
 likely to be honest than a boor. 
 
 HIS FORTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY. 
 
 I used to know a genial gentleman, who for 
 many years in succession, celebrated his forty-sec- 
 ond birthday. As he was somewhat prominent in 
 public life, the anniversary of his birth was ob- 
 
THE MOSSI5ACK CORKKSPONDKNCE. 169 
 
 served with unusual ceremony ; the governor of 
 the State and the leading members of the legisla- 
 ture were frequently present at the anniversary 
 dinner, which became one of "the institutions " of 
 the place in which he lived. But the unique 
 thing about the celebration was the unvarying re- 
 turn of the forty-second anniversary for many suc- 
 cessive years. This harmless little pleasantry has 
 its instructive side, bearing upon the much-talked- 
 of ministerial dead-line. A man can arrest the 
 passing years more effectually than most people 
 are willing to concede. If he cannot altogether 
 efface the wrinkles or an est the gathering gray 
 hairs, he can keep the wrinkles and the signs of 
 age out of his heart, where they have no business 
 to appear. He can remain forty-two years of age 
 about as long as he chooses. "The days of the 
 years " of the soul's life are not threescore years 
 and ten, or even fourscore years ; if so, what a 
 dreary prospect would the years of eternity offer 
 the immortal ! The threescore years of man's 
 time on earth are but the opening seconds of the 
 soul's life. To grow old is not a matter of physi- 
 cal decay, but of mental withering and atrophy. 
 Some of my youngest friends have the whitest 
 
I/O THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 hair. Some of my elderly acquaintances are the 
 men on the infantile side of thirty, who have al- 
 ready sucked dry the poor orange of the world, 
 and thrown it away in disgust. 
 
 The gentleman of whom I have written had 
 very good reason for celebrating his forty-second 
 birthday on successive years, for, by taking a fresh 
 and genial interest in life, by cultivating friend- 
 ships, by keeping en rapport with youth and youth- 
 ful interests, and by opening his soul to the 
 breezes of heaven, though he lived to what men 
 call a good old age, he never got beyond his prime. 
 There is little reason why any one in this life 
 should pass that bound. To keep the heart on 
 the younger side of this limit is the true solution 
 of "the dead-line problem." 
 
 HT TO BE MARRIED. 
 
 " Marriage is the best state for man in general ; 
 and every man is a worse man in proportion as he 
 is unfit for the marriage state." So quoth old Dr. 
 Johnson, and though history tells us that his own 
 
TUi£. MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. I/I 
 
 choice of a wife was not pre-eminently a wise one, 
 there is a world of truth in his aphorism. There 
 comes a period in the lift . '" every young person 
 when thoughts of marriage are apt to fill a large 
 segment of the horizon, but how few of these 
 young persons ever seriously ask the question, 
 "Am I fit to be married.?" If the question 
 should happen to arise in a social gathering, it 
 would be answered facetiously and disposed of as 
 a good joke. But it is one of the most serious 
 and searching questions which any young person, 
 bent on self-examination, could put to himself. 
 " Am I selfish, overbearing, tyrannical ? " the 
 young man may well say; ''then surely I am not 
 fit to be married; these traits, when brought to 
 the test of the close companionship of daily life, 
 will bring misery to myself and my family. If I 
 am still to retain my selfish tyranny of disposition, 
 I ought to live in bachelor quarters and not inflict 
 myself upon an unsuspecting wife." "Have I a 
 fretful, complaining, nagging, disposition.?" the 
 young lady may well say to herself when it comes 
 her turn for self-inquisition; ''then I am very far 
 from being fit to enter upon that companionship 
 which will bring out all that is most disagreeable 
 
1/2 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 and rasping in my character." And so on through 
 the catalogue of minor moralities this test may be 
 wisely applied. When two persons walk arm in 
 arm, each feels the inequalities of the other's step. 
 More misery is spelt i-n-c-o-m-p-a-t-i-b-i-l-i-t-y than 
 by any other combination of letters. The self- 
 sufficient youth frequently asks if the partner to 
 the other side of the contract is likely to make a 
 good wife ; humility seldom leads him far enough 
 to ask if he would make a good husband. But 
 this is a question quite as necessary to ask as the 
 other, since no marriage ring is strong enough to 
 bind together two hearts where love and respect 
 on one side are not wedded to love and respect on 
 the ether side. Love is deaf as well as blind, and 
 I have little expectation that the smitten youth 
 and maiden will listen to these exhortations, but 
 before Cupid shoots his dart is a good time for 
 future husbands or wives to ask this searching 
 question, " Am / fit to be married } " 
 
MR. MOSSBAGK'S 
 
 BRIEF VISIT TO UTOPIA 
 
 AND WHAT HE SAW THERE. 
 
MR. MOSSBACK^S VISIT TO UTOPIA. 
 
 A SOCIAL PARTY IN UTOPIA. 
 
 At this party I engaged in conversation with 
 the other guests, but was surprised to hear noth- 
 ing about the last alleged defalcation or other 
 scandal. 
 
 It seemed best to this company to wait full 
 developments before it pronounced judgment up- 
 on the last absconding deacon, or fallen minister, 
 or Sunday school superintendent, who has "gone 
 wrong." 
 
 ''Well, well," I said to myself, "this is 
 strange ! " 
 
 But the wonder grew when the ^ .iness failure 
 of some church-member was alluded to, and actu- 
 ally no one insinuated that he failed for the pur- 
 pose of making money. Only sympathy was 
 
 175 
 
176 THE MOSSIiACK C OKRESPONDENCE. 
 
 expressed for his embarrassment. An ill-consid- 
 ered and awkward speech was made at this Uto- 
 pian party. In this latitude I fear it would have 
 wrought mischief, but in Utopia the whole assem- 
 bled company agreed that nothing serious was 
 meant by it ; that it was but an infelicity and it 
 was forgotten without another thought. Against 
 one of the great men of the town, suspicions had 
 been directed and an evil story had been told. In 
 this country, this would have blackened his char- 
 acter for life, but in Utopia judgment was sus- 
 pended, and his pure aiid noble past life and 
 services were not ignored. I found out at this 
 party that in Utopia it is the custom to put the 
 best construction upon every action. 
 
 The Utopians are sure to guard each other 
 from every breath of unjust calumny and reproach. 
 They make every allowance for defects in training 
 or temperament. They meet each other, not with 
 a cold and formal nod, but with a warm and 
 hearty handshake. And yet, if one does chance 
 to be overlooked, he ascribes the slight to short- 
 sightedness or preoccupation of mind, not to in- 
 tentional neglect. 
 
 A church quarrel, I was told, is a thing un- 
 
THE MOSSr.ACK CORRESPONDENCE. I // 
 
 known in Utopia, while, as for there being two 
 parties that hate each other, it is as impossible as 
 for a man's right hand to hate his left. " Have 
 we not one Lord, one faith, one baptism," they 
 say, "what then can separate iis.^" while all oth- 
 ers look on and say, " Behold how these brethren 
 love one another." 
 
 So much I learned from my first social party in 
 Utopia. 
 
 ELECTION DAY IN UTOPIA. 
 
 It so chanced that one of the days which I 
 spent in Utopia was election day, and I very 
 gladly availed myself of the invitation of a friend 
 to go with him to the polls. We came upon the 
 polling place quite unawares, for (forgetting that 
 I was in Utopia) I had been looking for a swarm 
 of broken-down, blear-eyed sots and ward bum- 
 mers, whom I had always associated with such 
 places. What was my surprise, then, when my 
 friend turned into a light and airy room with a 
 
178 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 clean floor undefilcd by tobacco-juice, while the 
 air was unpolluted by tobacco-smoke. Wishing 
 to sec what kind of ballots were used, I looked 
 around for the zealous distributors, who, in my 
 native city, are accustomed to thrust them into 
 my face, but saw no one to do this service for me. 
 Instead, I noticed on a table two piles of tickets 
 from which my friend selected the one he wished, 
 and handed it to another gentleman who sat 
 behind the table, who immediately placed it in a 
 box upon his right hand, while the ticket of still 
 another man, who came in at that moment, and 
 who took his ballot from the other pile, was 
 deposited in a box on the left. "Why, my good 
 friend," said I, in some amazement, "how does it 
 happen that you vote in this loose way .-* Where 
 are your precautions against fraud and repeaters 
 and ballot-box stuffing ? Where are your registers 
 and patent boxes and check-lists and special guar- 
 dians of the ballot.-*" "You forget," answered 
 my friend, with a quiet smile, " that you are in 
 Utopia and not in America." I confess that I 
 did not relish this fling at my native land, but 
 when I flushed up and was about to reply, I 
 really did not have much to say, and concluded 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 79 
 
 that silence on this point was the part of dis- 
 cretion. "Well," said I, after a moment's pause, 
 " I suppose you have all your rows and political 
 trickery at the caucus, instead of at the polls, and 
 everything is so cut and dried that there is 
 nothing to do here but to hand over one of those 
 bits of paper" (for I was still a little touched, you 
 see, by his insinuations). "On the contrary," 
 said my friend, "the election is in the greatest 
 doubt. No one in Utopia, I venture to say, can 
 predict the result, for the two political parties are 
 very evenly divided. We have our caucuses, to 
 be sure, which all our citizens, rich and poor, feel 
 it their duty to attend. Both parties endeavor to 
 choose their wisest men as candidates, and all 
 that we have to do to-day is to express our prefer- 
 ence for one set of political principles rather than 
 another. I really do not see how universal suf- 
 frage on any other conditions can be anything but 
 a dangerous menace to liberty." I saw that I 
 should get upon thin ice if I pursued the matter 
 any furthur, and so I changed the subject by 
 remarking that at any rate they enjoyed delightful 
 autumnal weather in Utopia. 
 
l80 TIIK MOSSBACK COKKESI'ONDKNCE. 
 
 SUNDAY MORNING IN UTOPIA. 
 
 The next day, being Sunday, I hastened with 
 great alacrity, at the sound of the church-bells, to 
 the nearest house of worship, and was greatly sur- 
 prised to find that every one else seemed to be go- 
 ing in the same direction. I at first concluded 
 that there was only this one church in the whole 
 city, but immediately remembered that I had seen 
 numerous similar edifices in my wanderings about 
 the streets, and, even from where I stood, as I 
 lifted up my eyes, I could see at least a dozen 
 spires, "Tell me, sir," said I, addressing a pass- 
 er-by, '*do all the inhabitants of Utopia think 
 alike on religious matters ? " "By no means," he 
 replied ; " there are several different denomina- 
 tions, and each one is loyal to his own faith. 
 Moreover, we have all come to the conclusion that 
 this is as it should be. for we cannot all look at 
 the truth from just the same angle. Yet we all 
 hold the truth, and are quite willing to believe 
 that our neighbors, though they emphasize 
 another side of the same truth, agree with us sub- 
 
THE M0SSI3ACK COKKESPONDENCE. l8l 
 
 stantially. You will find all the churches crowded 
 with worshippers this morning, and I have no 
 doubt you will hear faithful and earnest sermons 
 in all of them. Still we all prefer our own church 
 home very naturally." 
 
 Just then I noticed a large vehicle going by, 
 which somewhat resembled our stage-coaches, or, 
 more nearly, perhaps, a long, seashore barge. 
 This vehicle was full of people going in the same 
 direction as the foot passengers. It was all the 
 more noticeable by reason of the entire absence of 
 street and steam cars, as well as all other car- 
 riages. "Pardon me," said I to my new-found 
 friend, " but may I ask if that is a picnic-carriage ? 
 I suppose those people must be going to the park, 
 or to the seashore, but they do not look exactly 
 like excursionists, for I see many of them seem to 
 have their Bibles with them." "No," said my 
 friend, "those people are not going to a picnic, 
 but to church. That is a church carriage, and is 
 the only kind of vehicle that is used on Sunday. 
 It goes about throughout the suburbs, and picks 
 up people who are too young, or too old, or too 
 infirm to walk to church, or who live too far away. 
 Thus we give our engineers and firemen and 
 
1 82 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 horse-car drivers and conductors a chance to rest 
 from their labors on Sunday, and these church 
 carriages answer every purpose." "The wealthy 
 people ride in their own carriages, I suppose," 
 said I. "No," replied my friend, "they, too, take 
 the common vehicle, so that their drivers, as well 
 as their horses, may rest." " It strikes me, " I re- 
 marked (rather rudely I fear), "that your notions 
 here in Utopia are decidedly Puritanical. How 
 can the poor people get a breath of fresh air, or a 
 glimpse of God's country, if they have to work all 
 the week, and go to church all day Sunday } " 
 "Oh, that is provided for," said he, overlooking 
 my heat. " Every Saturday is a half -holiday, and, 
 I assure you, our prAs md picnic grounds and 
 seaside resorts are crowded with as jolly a set of 
 people as you would care to see." 
 
 By this time we had reached the church for 
 which I had started ; my companion, who was go- 
 ing to another church further along the street, 
 politely bade me "Good-morning," and I went 
 within. 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 183 
 
 AT CHURCH TN UTOPIA. 
 
 As I entered the church door I was greeted by 
 a portly, kindly-faced man, who, to judge from his 
 appearance, was one of the solid men of Utopia. 
 Quite a throng of people entered with me, but he 
 singled me out and approached me with a saluta- 
 tion. " I think you are a stranger, sir. We are 
 very glad to see you in our church, and give you a 
 hearty welcome." At the same time he grasped 
 my hand and gave it such a cordial shake that I 
 had occasion to remember it for several minutes. 
 
 I had expected to stand awkwardly in the vesti- 
 bule until the congregation was seated, and then 
 get a seat as best I could, but I was surprised and 
 not a little pleased, to have my portly friend call a 
 young man who was evidently one of the ushers, 
 and say to him, "Give this gentleman a seat in 
 the, broad aisle." This was no sooner said than 
 done. I noticed, as I went into the church, more 
 than a dozen, perhaps nearly a score, of substan- 
 tial men, like the one who had greeted me, stand- 
 ing in the vestijule, and when I inquired about 
 the matter I found that it was customary for the 
 
184 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 leading men of the churches to wait in the vesti- 
 bule for the purpose of welcoming strangers, in 
 order that they might not miss the shy and bash- 
 ful ones, and that they might give every one as 
 good a seat as possible. There were a sexton and 
 ushers, to be sure, besides, but they told me after- 
 wards that the Utopians deemed it no more than 
 proper that the representative men should per- 
 form this office of welcoming all to the house of 
 God. I had been in my seat but a few minutes 
 when a gentleman with a large family eame down 
 the aisle, and I soon found that I was in his pew ; 
 thereupon I was about to give up my seat, with 
 apologies for the intrusion, when he completely 
 silenced me by insisting that I should keep my 
 seat, while he found one elsewhere. I saw that it 
 was a real pleasure to him to find me in his seat, 
 and I could only remain where I was, with thanks 
 for his hospitality. As for the divine service, I 
 can only say that it struck me as eminently sincere 
 and genuine. I have heard more artistic singing, 
 but I never heard music more worshipful and 
 heaven-soaring. I did not miss a word of the 
 opening anthem, and I felt that I ought to be a 
 better man, when it was finished. In the congre- 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 8$ 
 
 gational hymns every one joined, as well as in the 
 responsive readings and in the Lord's prayer, and 
 also in the simple creed and confession of faith. 
 
 I have heard more rhetorical sermons, too ; in 
 fact, I think some of our very nice and learned 
 critics of the press would have called it a ridicu- 
 lously simple and plain sermon. There was no 
 airing of Greek or Hebrew, and not a single Latin 
 quotation. There was little deep philosophy, or, 
 at least, no muddy philosophy, which, I notice, 
 usually passes for the same thing, and not a sin- 
 gle allusion to Ingersoll, which surprised me very 
 much until I happened to remember that the re- 
 doubtable Colonel had never visited Utopia. But 
 there was much plain, moving, gospel truth, and 
 when the sermon was finished I said to myself, 
 as I had said at the close of the anthem, •' I must 
 and will be a better man." 
 
SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 The following letters from some of the gentle- 
 men to whom Mr. Mossback wrote ought not to 
 be omitted from this correspondence. 
 
%^ 
 
SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. MOSSBACK 
 FROM THE SEXTON. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Mossback : 
 
 One of your breezy letters, I remember, was 
 addressed to the sexton, and I, for one, like the 
 man who so much enjoyed the service in the 
 Episcopal church because he could talk back, wish 
 the privilege ot doing just that thing. When I 
 first read your letter I was tempted to be a 
 trifle provoked that you should become my self- 
 appointed critic, but when I found that you really 
 were not ill-natured, I concluded that you were, 
 after all, a good old gentleman, who didn't know a 
 sexton's trials. 
 
 But, really, Mr. Mossback, if you had ever been 
 
 a sexton you would never have written as you did. 
 
 189 
 
IQO THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 You never thought, I suppose, how many differ- 
 ent people there are in every congregation, each 
 one of whom wants the mercury to stand at a dif- 
 ferent altitude. There is rich Mrs. Sealskin, 
 who pants and puffs and flourishes her fan and 
 takes on at a great rate, if the thermometer indi- 
 cates more than sixty ; while young Miss Flora 
 McFlimsy, with shoulders nearly bare, shivers 
 like an aspen leaf, if it does not register at least 
 seventy degrees. One Sunday I get a Scotch 
 blessing from Mrs. Sealskin, because it is too hot, 
 and the very next, when I try to please her, I get 
 a similar benediction from Miss McF., because it 
 is too cold. So what is a poor fellow to do ? 
 Then as to opening the windows to admit the air. 
 Whenever I do it the breeze is sure to strike 
 somebody's bald head ; and though everybody 
 wants his neighbor's window open, nobody will 
 have his own window open, and the result is one 
 of those " hermetically sealed churches " that peo- 
 ple are always complaining about. The only 
 remedy that I can suggest is to rail off the bald- 
 headed men in some high-backed pews by them- 
 selves, where no breath of wind can ever reach 
 them. But that would hardly do, for it would 
 
THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. IQI 
 
 seem like an unjust discrimination. Then again, 
 the sexton's soul is tried by the people who insist 
 on taking the back seat, even when the great, 
 vacant space in front looks bare and lonesome 
 enough to make the minister shudder ; and by the 
 people who leave him in the lurch when he is 
 conducting them up the aisle, allowing him to 
 stand stranded and looking foolish, at the door of 
 a pew, with no one following him. He is also 
 harassed by the unruly son of the rich pew-owner, 
 whom he does not dare to put out, however richly 
 the boy deserves it ; and by the giggling girls 
 who flirt with the Deacon's son, and who turn up 
 their pert noses if the sexton so much as ven- 
 tures to remonstrate with them. 
 
 Oh, I assure you, the sexton's berth isn't a bed 
 of roses by any means. If you think it is, just 
 change ends of the church with me, and see how 
 you like it. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 The Sexton. 
 
192 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. MOSSBACK 
 FROM THE ORGANIST. 
 
 Mv Dear Mr. Mossback : 
 
 It is very evident to me that you have little 
 music in your soul, and, according to the poet, 
 such a man 
 
 *♦ Is fit for treasons, stratagems, spoils." 
 
 You seem to think that time spent in playing in- 
 terludes, voluntaries, etc., is so much time wasted, 
 but if you had a little more music in your compo- 
 sition, you would see that it is just as possible to 
 worship God with an instrument of wood and iron 
 as with the human instrument called the voice. 
 
 Did not David praise God, I should like to 
 know, on stringed instruments, and organs ? 
 
 Then I would have you know that there is some 
 one else to be consulted besides your imperial 
 taste, even if you arc the minister. Perhaps some 
 people do not like to have you preach so long, 
 and would be quite willing to have you give up 
 some of your time to the organist, whom you treat 
 with so much levity. I should like to know, too, 
 what is the use of a long musical education, and a 
 
THE MOSSnACK CORRESPONDENCE. 1 93 
 
 critical musical taste, unless you can display your 
 powers before an appreciative congregation. At 
 any rate, Mr. Mossback, while you preach fifty-five 
 minutes every Sunday, and so long as you make 
 the rafters ring when you come to the "rouse- 
 ments," do not ask me to cut off my interludes or 
 to play so very softly when people are going out 
 of church. Yours truly, 
 
 The Organist. 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. MOSSBACK, 
 FROM AMMI SLEEPER, ESQ. 
 
 Dear Mr. Mossback : 
 
 I recognize the fact that your kindly criticism 
 was meant to apply to me, but, though I have put 
 the coat on and found it to be an admirable fit, I 
 am neither "mad" nor "grieved." Yes, I must 
 confess it, I do sometimes nod in church, and I 
 am afraid you, my dear pastor, see the uninspiring 
 top of my bald head at times. I hope, however, 
 you will not take it to heart, for, really, it is no 
 disrespect to you, nor does it betoken any lack of 
 appreciation of your sermons. 
 
194 THE MOSSBACK CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 The fact is, Mr. Mossback, I am a hard-working 
 man, as you know, laboring at my anvil through- 
 out every week-day, unused to sitting still even for 
 fifteen minutes at a time, and when I do get set- 
 tled down comfortably in the pew, the drowsy god 
 (or demon, perhaps I should call him) gets full 
 possession of me, and I find that I cannot shake 
 him off. If the angel Gabriel were preaching, I 
 sometimes fear that I should be so disrespectful 
 as to go to sleep before he got to "secondly." It 
 is not that I do not try to turn over a new leaf, 
 either. My wife, at my request, pinches me on 
 one side, and my daughter pokes me with her um- 
 brella on the other. I eat stick cinnamon and cu- 
 bebs, and try to pay the strictest attention by fol- 
 lowing the heads of your excellent sermon, but 
 even then I find it almost impossible to pry my 
 eyelids open. However, I am resolved to make 
 still further exertion in this direction. I will work 
 less on Saturdays and sleep twelve hours on Sat- 
 urday night, and if this doesn't answer, I may even 
 try the awakening virtue of a mustard plaster. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 Ammi Sleeper.