Having exhausted every imaginable variety of tone, he abruptly said, "Let us pray," and twisting his chair round, knelt before it.

Every one knelt before the seat they had occupied, and listened for another half hour to a rant of miserable, low, familiar jargon, that he presumed to improvise to his Maker as a prayer.

In this, however, the cottage apostle only followed the example set by every preacher throughout the Union, excepting those of the Episcopalian and Catholic congregations; THEY only do not deem themselves privileged to address the Deity in strains of crude and unweighed importunity.

These ranters may sometimes be very much in earnest, but surely the least we can say of it is, that they "Praise their God amiss." I enquired afterwards of a friend, well acquainted with such matters, how the grim preacher of "Hope" got paid for his labours, and he told me that the trade was an excellent one, for that many a gude wife bestowed more than a tithe of what her gude man trusted to her keeping, in rewarding the zeal of these self- chosen apostles.

These sable ministers walk from house to house, or if the distance be considerable, ride on a comfortable ambling nag.