The old class-meeting instinct and habit showed itself in his semi-lucid
intervals. He would go round among the patients questioning them as to
their religious feeling and behavior in true class-meeting style. Dr.
Shurtleff one day overheard a colloquy between him and Dr. Rogers, a
freethinker and reformer, whose vagaries had culminated in his shaving
close one side of his immense whiskers, leaving the other side in all
its flowing amplitude. Poor fellow! Pitiable as was his case, he made a
ludicrous figure walking the streets of San Francisco half shaved, and
defiant of the wonder and ridicule he excited. The ex-class-leader's
voice was earnest and loud, as he said:
"Now, Rogers, you must pray. If you will get down at the feet of Jesus,
and confess your sins, and ask him to bless you, he will hear you, and
give you peace. But if you won't do it," he continued, with growing
excitement and kindling anger at the thought, "you are the most infernal
rascal that ever lived, and I'll beat you into a jelly!"
The good Doctor had to interfere at this point, for the old man was in
the very act of carrying out his threat to punish Rogers bodily, on the
bare possibility that he would not pray as he was told to do.
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