Crumbs Swept Up

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.comwww.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MINISTERS' SUNSHINE. fO much has been written of the hardships of clergymen, small salaries, unreasonable churches, mean committees, and impudent parishioners, that parents seeking for their children's happiness are not wont to desire them to enter the sacred calling. Indeed, the story of empty bread-trays and cheerless parsonages has not half been told. But there is another side to the picture. Ministers' wives are not all vixens, nor their children scapegraces. Pastors do not always step on thorns and preach to empty benches. The parish sewing - society does not always roast their pastor over the slow fires of tittle- tattle. There is no inevitable connection between the gospel and bronchitis. As far aswe have observed, the brightest sunshine is ministers' sunshine. They have access to refined circles, means to give a good education to their children, friends to stand by them in every perplexity, and through the branches that drop occasional shadows on their way sifts the golden light of great enjoyment. It was about six o'clock of a June afternoon, the sun striking aslant upon the river, when the young minister and his bride were riding toward their new home. The air was bewitched with fragrance of field and garden, and a hum with bees out honey-making. The lengthening shadows did not fall on the road the twain passed; at least, they saw none. The leaves shook out a welcome, and as the carriage rumbled across the bridge in front of the house at which they were for a few days to tarry, it seemed as if hoof and wheel understood the transport of the hour. The weeks of bridal congratulation had ended, and here they were at the door of the good deacon who would entertain them. The village was all astir that evening. As far as politeness would allow, there was peering fro...