PAST AtfZ) PRESENT. 483
some of the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils
might compare with their progenitors who had sat with me in those
places and had probably taken me as a model—though I do not
remember as to that now. By the public square there had boen in
my day a shabby little brick church called the * Old Ship of Zion/
which I had attended as a Sunday-school scholar; and J found thr
locality easily enough, but not the old church; it was gone, and a
trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in its place. The pupils
were better dressed and better looking than were those of my time;
consequently they did not resemble their ancestors; and consequently
there was nothing familiar to me in their faces. Still, I contemplated
them with a deep interest and a yearning wistfulness, and if I had
been a girl I would have cried; for they were the offspring, and
represented, and occupied the places, of boys and girls some of whom
I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to hate, but all
of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other, so many
years gone by—and, Lord, where be they now!
I was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be
allowed to remain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald summited
superintendent who had been a tow-headed Sunday-school m*t« of
mine on that spot in the early ages, recognised me, and I talked
a flutter of wild nonsense to those children to hide the thoughts
which vrere in me, and which could not have been spoken without
a betrayal of feeling that would have been recognised as out of
character with me.
Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and I
was resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and
larger Sunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage;
so I was very willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of
getting a good look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I
could not recall any of the old idiotic talks which visitors used to
insult me with when I was a pupil there; and I was sorry for this,
since it would have given me time and excuse to dawdle there and
take a long and satisfying look at what I feel at liberty to say was
an array of fresh young comeliness not matchable in another Susulay-
school of the same size. As I talked merely to get a cfe*nce to
inspect; and as I strung out the random rubbish solely to prolong the