“THE DARK FACES OF THESE APOSTLES.”
“Methinks the dark faces of these apostles will shine with the glowing image of God’s love and providence—the providence that watched over them and kept them in a strange land, and then brought them back in safety, fitted to tell the story of God’s love and power, and His mercy that had redeemed them and made them free.
“And when the lowest and most unknowing one shall ask, ‘Who are these?’ methinks the answer will be as it was to St. John: ‘These are they who come out of great tribulations.’”
I wuz demute, and didn’t say nuthin’, and John Richard sez, in a deep axent and a earnest one, “But will this Government be warned by past judgments and past experience and be wise in time?
“I don’t know,” sez he, a answerin’ himself; for truly I didn’t know what to say nor how to say it.
“You spoke just now of the expense. It will cost less now to avert an evil than it will cost for its overthrow, when time, and national follies, and men’s bad passions, and inevitable causes have matured it, and the red cloud has burst in its livid fury over a doomed land. But time will tell.
“But while delays go on, the mills of the gods are grinding on; time nor tide cannot stop them. And if this nation sits down at its ease for a decade longer, woe to this republic!”
I wuz so thrilled, and skairt, and enthused by Cousin John Richard’s eloquence and strange and fiery words and flowery language that when I sort o’ come to myself I looked up, a expectin’ to see Josiah bathed in tears, for he weeps easy.
But even as I looked, I heard a low, peaceful snore. And I see that Josiah Allen had so fur forgot good manners and what wuz due to high principles and horspitality as to set there fast asleep. Yes, sleepin’ as sweet as a babe in its mother’s arms.
I looked mortified, I know.