herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the
poor “supplies” they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.
“I don’t believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays,” she wrote bitterly.
“Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it
ain’t true, and, what’s worse, it ain’t sound doctrine. The one we have now is the
worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And
he says he doesn’t believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they
won’t all the money we’ve been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean
wasted, that’s what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he’d
preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he’d better confine himself to the
Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a
minister can’t find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that’s what. What
church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so
careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students
are great sinners in this respect. I’m told many of them actually study their
lessons on Sunday. I hope you’ll never sink that low, Anne. Remember how you
were brought up. And be very careful what friends you make. You never know
what sort of creatures are in them colleges. Outwardly they may be as whited
sepulchers and inwardly as ravening wolves, that’s what. You’d better not have
anything to say to any young man who isn’t from the Island.
“I forgot to tell you what happened the day the minister called here. It was the
funniest thing I ever saw. I said to Marilla, ‘If Anne had been here wouldn’t she
have had a laugh?’ Even Marilla laughed. You know he’s a very short, fat little
man with bow legs. Well, that old pig of Mr. Harrison’s—the big, tall one—had
wandered over here that day again and broke into the yard, and it got into the
back porch, unbeknowns to us, and it was there when the minister appeared in
the doorway. It made one wild bolt to get out, but there was nowhere to bolt to
except between them bow legs. So there it went, and, being as it was so big and
the minister so little, it took him clean off his feet and carried him away. His hat
went one way and his cane another, just as Marilla and I got to the door. I’ll
never forget the look of him. And that poor pig was near scared to death. I’ll
never be able to read that account in the Bible of the swine that rushed madly
down the steep place into the sea without seeing Mr. Harrison’s pig careering
down the hill with that minister. I guess the pig thought he had the Old Boy on
his back instead of inside of him. I was thankful the twins weren’t about. It
wouldn’t have been the right thing for them to have seen a minister in such an
undignified predicament. Just before they got to the brook the minister jumped
off or fell off. The pig rushed through the brook like mad and up through the