To avoid a worse fate, the prisoner revealed his identity, exhibited the correspondence from “Ragem & Co.,” and made a full statement of the facts.  The painful news reached the church shortly after the return of the pastor, when his pulpit career came to an ignominious end.  He soon removed to the far West, hoping to bury his disgrace in the shades of the primeval forest.

The fall of Rev. Zachariah Sapp sounds a note of warning not without its lessons.  The only safety in dealing with temptation is to repel its insidious approaches from the outset.  Whoever listens in patience to the siren whisper is half lost already.  Human experience abundantly confirms the divine wisdom of the command, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” as the one sole safe way of meeting evil advances.  At the close of well-spent, useful lives, myriads can thank a kind Providence, not that they have been stronger than others who have turned out differently, but that they have been tried less.  Walking among unseen perils, none can without danger of ruin discard even for a moment the armor of honesty and truth.

AN ASPIRANT FOR CONGRESS

A few years ago, the “Hon.”  John Whimpery Brass, of Georgia, one of the “thoughtful patriots” of the period, who now and then found time to lay aside the cares of statecraft to nurse little private jobs of his own, allured by the seductive offers of “Wogan & Co.” of New York City, wrote to that somewhat mythical concern proposing to become their agent for the circulation of the “queer.”  Even after receiving the first installment of their wares, the honorable gentleman did not comprehend that the firm dealt exclusively in sawdust, not in currency.  He wrote again, complaining that, after a journey of sixty miles over a rough road to the nearest reliable express office, he found nothing but a worthless package, marked “C.  O. D.,” awaiting him.  Did Wogan & Co. distrust either his parts or fidelity?  He ventured to assert that no man in the State could serve them so effectually.  He had just run for Congress, and though beaten at the polls by “fraud,” intended to contest the seat with the chances of success in his favor.  The mountaineers among whom he lived did not care whether the money in their pockets was good or bad so long as it circulated.  He could put thousands of counterfeits afloat without the slightest fear of detection.  His constituency believed in him and would stand by him.  Currency was very scarce in that congressional district, and it would really be doing his people a great favor to give them more.  After setting forth the mutual benefits to accrue from trusting him, he appealed to Wogan & Co. with the vehemence and energy of the sewing-machine man, or life-insurance agent, to send on the goods without further delay.  They should never regret dealing with him, his character and standing being a sufficient guaranty that he could not play false.  He was acting in good faith, and expected like treatment in return.