Two scenes remained to look upon,—­the Shawshine River and the Indian Ridge.  The streamlet proved to have about the width with which it flowed through my memory.  The young men and the boys were bathing in its shallow current, or dressing and undressing upon its banks as in the days of old; the same river, only the water changed; “The same boys, only the names and the accidents of local memory different,” I whispered to my little ghost.

The Indian Ridge more than equalled what I expected of it.  It is well worth a long ride to visit.  The lofty wooded bank is a mile and a half in extent, with other ridges in its neighborhood, in general running nearly parallel with it, one of them still longer.  These singular formations are supposed to have been built up by the eddies of conflicting currents scattering sand and gravel and stones as they swept over the continent.  But I think they pleased me better when I was taught that the Indians built them; and while I thank Professor Hitchcock, I sometimes feel as if I should like to found a chair to teach the ignorance of what people do not want to know.

“Two tickets to Boston.”  I said to the man at the station.

But the little ghost whispered, “When you leave this place you leave me behind you.”

“One ticket to Boston, if you please.  Good by, little ghost.”

I believe the boy-shadow still lingers around the well-remembered scenes I traversed on that day, and that, whenever I revisit them, I shall find him again as my companion.

THE PULPIT AND THE PEW.

The priest is dead for the Protestant world.  Luther’s inkstand did not kill the devil, but it killed the priest, at least for us:  He is a loss in many respects to be regretted.  He kept alive the spirit of reverence.  He was looked up to as possessing qualities superhuman in their nature, and so was competent to be the stay of the weak and their defence against the strong.  If one end of religion is to make men happier in this world as well as in the next, mankind lost a great source of happiness when the priest was reduced to the common level of humanity, and became only a minister.  Priest, which was presbyter, corresponded to senator, and was a title to respect and honor.  Minister is but the diminutive of magister, and implies an obligation to render service.

It was promised to the first preachers that in proof of their divine mission they should have the power of casting out devils and talking in strange tongues; that they should handle serpents and drink poisons with impunity; that they should lay hands on the sick and they should recover.  The Roman Church claims some of these powers for its clergy and its sacred objects to this day.  Miracles, it is professed, are wrought by them, or through them, as in the days of the apostles.  Protestantism proclaims that the age of such occurrences as the apostles witnessed is past.  What does it know about miracles?  It knows a great many records of miracles, but this is a different kind of knowledge.