"At sunset, their day's journey finished, they hait, perhaps, in the forest by the roadside, to prepare for supper and to pass the night. The horses are un harnessed, watered and secured, with their heads to the trough, or else hoppled ont to grass."

milk, and coffee thickened with cream and sweetened by maple sugar.

Soon as it grew dark, my hostess took down a small candlemould for three candles, hanging from a wall on a frame-work just in front of the fire-place, in company with a rifle, long strings of dried pumpkins, and other articles of household property. On retiring I was conducted to the room overhead, to which I ascended. by stairs out of doors. My bed-fellow was the county sheriff, a young man about my own age; and as we lay together, a fine field was had for astronomical observations through the chinks of the logs. The next morning after rising, I was looking for the washing apparatus, when he tapped me on the shoulder as a signal to accompany him to the brook in the rear of the house, in whose pure crystal waters we performed our morning ablutions.

After breakfast, through the persuasion of the sheriff, who appeared to have taken a sort of fancy to me, I agreed to go across the country by his house. He was on horseback; I on foot, bearing my knapsack. For six miles our route lay through a pathless forest, on emerging from which, we soon passed through the "Court-House," the only village in the county, consisting of about a dozen log-houses and the court building. A mile further, my companion pointed to "the old field schoolhouse," in which he was initiated into the mysteries of reading and writing. Soon after we came to a Methodist encampment. The roads here being too rude to transport tents, log structures are built, which stand from year to year, affording much better shelter. This encampment was formed of three continuous lines, each occupying a side of a square, and about one hundred feet in length. Each row was divided into six or ten cabins, with partitions between. The height of the rows on the inner side of the inclosed area was about ten feet; on the outer about six, to which the roofs sloped shedlike. The door of each cabin opened on the inner side of the area, and at the back of each was a log chimney coming up even with the roof. At the upper extremity of the inclosure, formed by these three lines of cabins, was an open shed, a mere roof supported by posts, say thirty by fifty feet, in which was a coarse pulpit and log seats. A few tall trees were standing within the area, and many stumps scattered here and there. The whole establishment was in the depth of a forest, and wild and rude as can well be imagined.

Religious pride would demand a more magnificent temple, where the imposing column and the showy architrave would betoken the power of man, and the lofty vaulted roof gather and roll back the sound of anthems. But where could the humble and the devout more appropriately worship, than here under the blue arch of heaven, surrounded by the darkling wood, where the flitting shadow and the falling leaf were constantly reminding one of the instability of all earthly things?

How full is nature of such monitions! How solemn these words

of the Psalmist: "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof, shall know it no more!"

In many of these sparsely inhabited counties are no settled clergy, and rarely do the people hear any other than the Methodist preachers. Here is the itinerating system of Wesley exhibited in its full usefulness. The circuits are usually of three weeks' duration, in which the clergymen preach daily; so it but rarely happens, in some neighborhoods, when they have divine worship, that it is on the Sabbath. Most of those preachers are energetic, devoted men, and often endure great privations.

After sketching the encampment, I came in a few moments to the dwelling of the sheriff. Close by it were a group of mountain men and women seated around a log bin, about twelve feet square, ten high, and open at the top, into which these neighbors of my companion were casting ears of corn as fast as they could shuck them. Cheerfully they performed their task. The men were large and hardy, the damsels plump and rosy, and all dressed in good warm homespun. The sheriff informed me that he owned about two thousand acres around his dwelling, and that it was worth about one thousand dollars, or fifty cents an acre. I entered his log domicile, which was one story in height, about twenty feet square, and divided into two small rooms, without windows or places to let in light, except by a front and rear door.

I soon partook of a meal in which we had a variety of luxuries, not omitting bear's meat. A blessing was asked at the table by one of the neighbors. After supper the bottle, as usual at cornhuskings, was circulated. The sheriff learning I was a Washingtonian, with the politeness of one of nature's gentlemen, refrained from urging me to participate. The men drank but moderately, and we all drew around the fire, the light of which was the only one we had. Hunting stories and kindred topics served to talk down the hours till bedtime.

On awaking in the morning, I saw two ladies cooking breakfast in my bedroom, and three gentlemen seated over the fire, watching that interesting operation. After breakfast, I bade my host farewell, buckled on my knapsack, and left. He was a generous, warm-hearted man, and on my offering remuneration, he replied, "You are welcome; call again when this way."

In the course of two hours, I came to a cabin by the wayside. There being no gate, I sprang over the fence, entered the open door, and was received with a hearty welcome. It was an humble dwelling; the abode of poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat and pleasingly arranged. In the corner stood two beds, one hung with curtains, and both with coverlets of snowy white, contrasting with the dingy log walls, rude furniture, and roughboarded floor of this, the only room in the dwelling. Around a cheerful fire was seated an interesting family group. In one corner, on the hearth, sat the mother-who had given up her chair

to me-smoking a pipe. Next to her was a little girl in a small chair, holding a young kitten. In the opposite corner sat a venerable old man of Herculean stature, robed in a hunting-shirt, and with a countenance as majestic and impressive as that of a Roman senator. In the center of the group was a young maiden, modest and retiring, not beautiful, except in that moral beauty virtue gives. She was reading to them from a little book. She was the only one of the family who could read, and she could do so but imperfectly. In that small volume, which, perhaps, cost two shillings, was the whole secret of the neatness and happiness found in this lowly cot. That little book was the New Testament.

I conversed with the old man. He was, he said, a poor mountaineer, ignorant of the world." He was, it is true; but he had the independence of a man-the humility of a Christian. As I left the cottage, the snow flakes were slowly falling; and I pursued my lonely way through the forest with buoyant feelings, reflecting upon this exhibition of the religion of the meek and lowly One.

Beautiful are these lines where applied to a similar scene:

"Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride

In all the pomp of method and of art,

Where men display to congregations wide

Devotion's every grace except the heart:

But happy we, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul !"

FREMONT'S EXPEDITIONS.

JOHN C. FREMONT, originally a lieutenant of the United States Topographical Engineers, made three expeditions to the Far West under the authority of the general government, a fourth and a fifth being on private account. The object of the First Expedition-made in 1842-was to explore the country between the frontiers of Missouri and the South Pass in the Rocky Mountain, on the line of the Great Platte and Kansas Rivers. His party was almost entirely made up in the vicinity of St. Louis, and numbered twenty-eight, including himself. It consisted principally of Creole and Canadian voyageurs of French descent, and familiar with prairie life from having been in the service of the fur companies in the Indian country. The noted Christopher or Kit Carson was engaged as guide. On the 10th of June, the party left Choteau's trading-house, near the Missouri, four hundred miles above St. Louis, on the route of their intended explorations.

The journey was one of much interest, and occasionally enlivened by buffalo hunts and interviews with the Indians of the plains. On the 10th of July, they reached Vrain's Fort, on the south fork of the Platte, and four days after, Fort Laramie, on Laramie's River. This latter post belonged to the American Fur