“But,” sez I, “teachin’ religion and distributin’ tracts and spellin’ books hadn’t ort to do any hurt.”
“Wall, I d’no,” sez Josiah. “I d’no what kind of tracts he is a circulatin’, mebby they are inflamitory. If they are offen a piece with some of his talk here, I should think the South would ride him out.”
And so Josiah went on a runnin’ John Richard’s work and belief down to the lowest notch; and I wuz glad enough when Deacon Henzy come in on a errant, for I wuz indeed in hopes that this would change the subject.
But my hopes, as all earthly expectations are liable to be, wuz blasted. For Josiah went right on with his inflamed speeches and his unbelief about any danger a threatenin’ the nation from the South.
And I truly found myself in the condition of the one mentioned in Scripture (only different sex and circumstances), where it sez the last state of that man wuz worse than the first. For while my pardner’s talk had consisted mostly of the sin of unbelief, Deacon Henzy’s remarks wuz full of a bitter hatred and horstility towards the ex-slaveholders of the Southern States.
He truly had no bowels of compassion for ’em, not one.
He come from radical abolitionist stock on both sides, and wuz brung up under the constant throwin’ of stuns, throwed by parents and grandparents at them they considered greater sinners than themselves.
And Deacon Henzy had gathered up them stuns and set ’em in a settin’ of personal obstinacy and bigotry, and wore ’em for a breastplate.
And hard it wuz to hit any soft place under them rocky layers of prejudices inherited and acquired.