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Show THE ART OF LEAVING OFF IT was a hot August Sunday, one of those days on which art itself must not be made too long lest it should shorten life. A little company of us bad driven down from our hotel on the comparatively breezy hill to attend church in the village. The majority chose to pay their devotions at the big yellow meeting·house, where the preacher was reputed a man of eloquence; but my Uncle Peter drew me with him to the modest gray chapel, at the far end of the street, which was temporarily under the care of a student in the winter-school of theology, who was wisely spending his vacation in the summerschool of life. Some happy inspiration led the young man to select one of Lyman Abbott's shortest and simplest sermons,-itself a type of the mercy which it commended,-and frankly read it to us instead of pronouncing a discourse of his own. The result of this was that we came out of chapel at a quarter past eleven in a truly grateful and religious frame of mind. Sll |