Vol. XXI.

IN THE ORGAN LOFT. "I heard the bells on Christmas day Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet
The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

LOODGATE is not a large town, but it prides itself on the excellence of its society. However, the only one of its people I care to talk about at present was never "in society." He was known as "Uncle Adam." He had a surname, but so persistently was it ignored that all save a very few forgot it completely. He was the sexton of the Church of the Puritans. Besides performing all the regular duties of that office, with his own hands he pumped the organ. He was not required to do this, but he insisted on it, not for the sake of increasing his salary, for he stipulated particularly that he wanted no extra pay in consequence, but because he adored music and hed theories in regard to organ pumping.

The pumper, he said, should be something of an artist as well as the organist. He should put his soul into the work and it would be felt in the music. This he surely did. Such energy and enthusiasm were never before applied to organ pumping. When the music gushed from the tall pipes, rose high and then softly died away, Uncle Adam, in the little dim room that concealed him, exulted. When he emerged from the organ loft, after services, instead of being weary from his severe exertion, his face was invariably bright and beaming. Often and often he was in a state of spiritual exaltation quite incomprehensible to the fine people who spoke to him kindly and patronizingly. His eyes burned with an unaccustomed light, and his thoughts seemed

No. 1.

to be of things greater and grander than the old church contained.

The music wrought this change, thought the few who noticed it. Not entirely. Uncle Adam was dreaming of things they knew not of. He lived, at such times, in another world, the world of the invisible and the eternal. He believed that that world was shut out from this by the veil of flesh only, and that at times this vell was swept aside and the spirit of the flesh saw the spirits "who are as the angels of heaven," without flesh.

"I know there are spirits about us, because I see them," he said. "I know they are the spirits of men and women who once lived in this world, for my own people are among them-my wife, my children, my mother, and my friends of long ago. I know that we are immortal, for I feel that I shall never die. I am sure my soul can never perish, for I believe it to be a part of God."

The old man always grew eloquent when talking on this subject. His soul was aflame and his thoughts came forth in the strong and simple language of inspiration.

I have spoken of Uncle Adam as an old man. He might better be described as one who had never been young. In years he wasn't really old; but he seemed far away from anything youthful; long past all the joys of life.

Cheerful was he always, unhappy never, though others, seeing only the outward phase of his life, saw no pleasure or beauty in it. Poor and hard as it appeared to them, it held joys that might well have been envied; but they were joys of the spirit only. They belonged to "the peace man did not make and cannot mar."

Uncle Adam lived alone in a tiny house close beside the church of his care. His small front room was a workshop, where