are $1,000 for prudent distribution in that direction.  Now, we are within four votes of having enough. $5,000 to that intelligent member from Westchester, and $2,000 to that stupid member from Ulster, and now we are within two votes of having it.  Give $500 to this member, who will be sick and stay at home, and $300 to this member, who will go to see his great-aunt languishing in her last sickness.  The day has come for the passing of the bill.  The Speaker’s gavel strikes.  “Senators, are you ready for the question?  All in favour of voting away these thousands of millions of dollars will say, ‘Ay.’” “Ay!  Ay!  Ay!  Ay!” “The Ays have it.”  It was a merciful thing that all this corruption went on under a republican form of government.  Any other style of government would have been consumed by it long ago.  There were enough national swindles enacted in this country after the war—­yes, thirty years afterwards—­to swamp three monarchies.

The Democratic party filled its cup of iniquity as it went out of power, before the war.  Then the Republican party came along and it filled its cup of iniquity a little sooner; and there they lie, the Democratic party and the Republican party, side by side, great loathsome carcasses of iniquity, each one worse than the other.

These are reminiscences of more than thirty years ago, and yet it seems that I have never ceased to fight the same sort of human temptations and frailties to this very day.

THE FOURTH MILESTONE

1862-1877

I spent seven of the most delightful years of my life in Philadelphia.  What wonderful Gospel men were round me in the City of Brotherly Love at this time—­such men as Rev. Alfred Barnes, Rev. Dr. Boardman, Rev. Dr. Berg, Rev. Charles Wadsworth, and many others equally distinguished.  I should probably never have left Philadelphia except that I was afraid I would get too lazy.  Being naturally indolent I wanted to get somewhere where I would be compelled to work.  I have sometimes felt that I was naturally the laziest man ever born.  I am afraid of indolence—­as afraid of indolence as any reformed inebriate is afraid of the wine cup.  He knows if he shall take one glass he will be flung back into inebriety.  I am afraid, if I should take one long pull of nothing to do, I should stop forever.

My church in Philadelphia was a large one, and it was crowded with lovely people.  All that a congregation could do for a pastor’s happiness they were doing, and always had done.

We ministers living in Philadelphia at this time may have felt the need for combating indolence, for we had a ministerial ball club, and twice a week the clergymen of all denominations went out to the suburbs of the city and played baseball.  We went back to our pulpits, spirits lightened, theology improved, and able to do better service for the cause of God than we could have done without that healthful shaking up.