will, to see that their interests were attended to, whatever became of the poor.  Accordingly, when he heard of any case of particular distress, such as that a poor emigrant died of misery in a cold, deserted house, our poormaster regretted it, as an individual; but, as an officer, he said, he acted according to principle.  He could not betray his constituents, who elected him against his will, by any act of extravagance; and the good of the many must be consulted.  “Even the Lord,” he used to say,—­for he was a religious man,—­“when he created the sun, left spots in it.”  The best statesman must sometimes do what may be cruel to the few; but, in the end, it would turn out for the good of man.  This district, since his election, now twice successively, had made a saving of some two hundred a year since he became its officer; and that would, in time, open the eyes of the people as to who were proper candidates for office, tend to diminish taxes, and, in fact, be a work for man—­progress and virtue.  Besides this, Mr. Poormaster Van Stingey had “got religion,” by which he was wonderfully enlightened, having been so lucky as to gain that valuable accomplishment just six months, and only six months, before his election, at a camp meeting held near the village of M——­ville.

“I tell you what, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Knicks,” said he, “there is nothin’ like religion.  Before I got religion, and jined the church, I didn’t have any knowledge of God.  I used to pity these emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these Papists, wher’n he lets them run down so.  The word of life is great.”

“Wal, I do not know.  I care not a straw about any church; but my old mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no sign of the Lord’s displeasure; as witness holy Job and Christ himself, who were poor.  In fact, she never stopped telling us, when boys, that riches were dangerous, the love of money the root of all evil, and that ‘whom he chastiseth the Lord loveth.’”

“O, but your mother was a stiff Papist, you know, and did not understand the word of God.”

“Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it.  That she had.”

“She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst not look at, you know, Knicks.”

“I know better, Van.  Don’t you talk so.  I have got the very Bible she used and read every day—­a great large one, printed in London.  Mother was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father was Dutch.”

“Why, I never knowed that, Knicks.  That was a great misfortune.  These priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so, that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction.”