Machiavelli Clay foolishly invades the Cumberland country on a broad mission of personal politics, and he like Statesman Adams makes a speech. Machiavelli Clay, however, does not talk of Oregon, or Texas, or what shall be the nation's foreign policy, whether timid or warlike. His is wholly and solely a party oration, and in it he pays left-handed tribute to Aaron Burr, dead a decade. Machiavelli Clay escapes no better with his offensive eloquence than does Statesman Adams. The perilous old General from his Hermitage is instantly out upon him with another open letter, of which the closing paragraph says:
“How contemptible does this lying demagogue appear, when he descends from his high place in the Senate, and roams over the country retailing slanders against the dead.”
The General is much refreshed by these outbursts, and, in that contentment of soul which follows, resolves to join the church. Long ago he promised the blooming Rachel, fast asleep at the foot of the garden, that once he be free from the muddy yoke of politics he will accept religion, and now he keeps his word. He unites himself with the congregation which worships in that little chapel, aforetime built for the blooming Rachel, and, upon his coming into the fold, there arises vast rejoicing throughout the ardent length and breadth of Cumberland Presbyterianism.
The pastor, Dominie Edgar, calls often at the Hermitage; for he feels that the General may require some special spiritual grooming. One day he observes that convert's saw-handles, oiled and neat and ready for blood, on a mantel, prayerfully crossed beneath a portrait of the blooming Rachel. The good dominie is shocked, but does not show it. He picks up one of the saw-handles.
“This has seen service, doubtless,” he remarks tentatively.
“Ay!” responds the General grimly; “it has seen good service.”
Dominie Edgar puts the saw-handle back in place, and his curiosity pushes no farther afield. He rightly conjectures it to be the weapon which cut down the slanderous Dickinson, and mentally holds that it will more advantage the soul of his convert to touch as scantily as may be upon topics so ferocious. Shifting his ground, Dominie Edgar asks:
“General, do you forgive your enemies?”
“Parson,” says the convert, “I forgive my enemies, and welcome. But I shall never”—here he points up at the portrait of the blooming Rachel, which seems to lovingly follow his every motion with its painted patient eyes—“I shall never forgive her enemies. My feud shall follow them, and the memory of them, to the end of time.”
Dominie Edgar sits down with his convert to show him the error of his obdurate ways. He lectures cogently. It is to be feared, however, that his doctrinal seed of forgiveness falls upon hard, intractable ground; for, while the convert says never a word, the lecture serves but to light again in those blue eyes what lamps of hateful battle burned there on a certain fierce May morning in that popular Kentucky wood.