im> TALES OF THE TIMES.
from time immemorial in the same words, become uninteresting after a while to the really hungry. The mind alive to the swift whirl of progress wants something besides ancient and oft-repeated stories and traditions. The moment one begins to think, seats in churches grow hard.
We have had many good men in California as spiritual teachers, many saintly men, many true patriots, many of marked talents. No man exercised greater or more beneficial influence during: a crisis which was to determine the destinies of the state than Thomas Star King, who spared neither voice nor pen to save the republic from dissension. In Doctor Scott the Californians of early days saw her Saint Paul, and the divine Saint John was not more heavenly-minded than Doctor Wadsworth, overflowing as he was with pure though peculiar genius.
But among the many good men of the ministerial class, as among others, there were some bad men. Of these, few knew of their badness themselves when they left their homes. Throughout their lives sermon had followed Sunday school, and college, catechism, and they really regarded themselves as saintly. No one was more surprised than they, after they had been in the mines a short time to catch themselves drinking at a bar, betting at monte, or frequenting a house of ill-fame.
Of all plants, probably a youthful clergyman in a stormy climate is the most tender. Educated into the belief that belief is everything, while actually not knowing what belief is; taught to think himself by reason of his profession alone whiter than others in his purity, stronger in his strength, when bereft of these stays he often falls deeper than any.
It was so in flush California. Hundreds of those who came hither fell, fell very low, lower than some who professed less. Many took on the livery of Satan before they touched the shore—in New York, on the steamer, or at the Isthmus; so that when they
