Christ's vineyard from whom I could not part without great pain. But I
will prayerfully consider your request. I shall seek for guidance where
alone it is to be found, at the foot of the Great White Throne, and
within a week or so at most I hope to be able to answer you with the
full and joyous certitude of the Divine blessing.
"In the meantime, believe that I thank you deeply, dear Brethren, for
your goodness to me, and that I shall pray in Jesus' Name that the
blessing of the Holy Ghost may be with you abundantly now and for
evermore.
"Your loving Servant in Christ,
"JOHN P. LETGOOD."
He liked this letter so much that he read it over a great many times. It
committed him to nothing; it was dignified and yet sufficiently
grateful, and the large-hearted piety which appeared to inform it
pleased him even more than the alliteration of the words "born and
brought up." He had at first written "born and reared;" but in spite of
the fear lest "brought up" should strike the simple Deacons of the
Second Baptist Church in Chicago as unfamiliar and far-fetched, he could
not resist the assonance. After directing the letter he went upstairs to
bed, and his prayers that night were more earnest than they had been of
late--perhaps because he avoided the dangerous topic. The exercise of
his talent as a letter-writer having put him on good terms with himself,
he slept soundly.
When he awoke in the morning his mood had changed. The day was cloudy; a
thunderstorm was brewing, and had somehow affected his temper. As soon
as he opened his eyes he was aware of the fact that Mrs. Hooper had not
written to him, even on Tuesday morning, when she must have been free,
for the Deacon always went early to his dry-goods store. The
consciousness of this neglect irritated him beyond measure. He tried,
therefore, to think of Chicago and the persons who frequented the Second
Baptist Church. Perhaps, he argued, they were as much ahead of the
people in Kansas City as Mrs. Hooper was superior to any woman he had
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