IN 1876, circumstances, partly accidental and partly sentimental², led me to revisit Crooked³ Creek⁴ Church, near the little village of Rockville, in Middle Georgia. I was amazed at the changes which a few brief years had wrought⁵. The ancient oaks ranged roundabout remained the same, but upon everything else time had laid its hand right heavily. Even the building seemed to have shrunk: the pulpit was less massive and imposing⁷, the darkness beyond the rafters less mysterious. The preacher had grown grey, and feebleness had taken the place of that physical vigour⁹ which was the distinguishing feature of his interpretations¹² of the larger problems of theology. People I had never seen sat in the places of those I had known so well. There were only traces here and there of the old congregation, whose austere¹³ simplicity¹⁴ had made so deep an impression upon my youthful mind The blooming girls of 1860 had grown into careworn¹⁵ matrons, and the young men had developed in their features the strenuous¹⁶ uncertainty¹⁷ and misery¹⁸ of the period of desolation and disaster through which they had passed. Anxiety had so ground itself into their lives that a stranger to the manner might well have been pardoned for giving a

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