Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/127

 pected and grow'd up to a chunked, healthy youngster. He'll be 19 year old, come next April-fool-day; and I meant to a done well by Amariah, when he got to be of age, and give him a decent settin' out, and then hired him by the month, if so be that he was agreeable to't, and pay him the money.

But he's growin' despate unstiddy of late, ever since the judgment o' God upon our church, and congregation, in lettin' the Methodist loose among us. You ha'nt heard of our chastisement for our backslidins, and lukewarmness, have ye, Ma'am? Poor Deacon Bump takes it to heart so sadly, that he's grown as thin as a June-shad. Why these people have hired a room rite over acrost the way from our meetin-house, and when our worthy minister begins the sarvice a Sabba-day mornin', they begin what they call their exercises, and what with their screechin' and scramin', and singin' and tumlin' down, they make sich a racket, that it's utterly unpossible, for us to hear any thing to be edified with. They hold out longer than we too, and have love-feasts, and night-meetins, and a deal that I cant make neither head nor tail on, and I grieve to say that Amariah is gittin' bewitched arter 'em. I'm sure I don't know what religion there can be in sich actions, and as for their lungs, if they wa'nt made o' soal-luther, I'm sure they'd be wore into holes like a honey-comb."

"The Methodists, my good friend, though their manner of worship differs from ours, must not be thought destitute