excellentest

Updated: May 9, 2025

Baxter's early religious teachers were more exceptionable than even the maudlin mummer whom Roberts speaks of, one of them being "the excellentest stage- player in all the country, and a good gamester and goodfellow, who, having received Holy Orders, forged the like for a neighbor's son, who on the strength of that title officiated at the desk and altar; and after him came an attorney's clerk, who had tippled himself into so great poverty that he had no other way to live than to preach."

John Greenleaf Whittier - Old Portraits, Part 1, from Volume VI.,: The Works of Whittier: Old Portraits and Modern Sketches