"It is at least a well-founded suspicion," said the preacher.
"He ought to be burned at the stake!" Mr. Clem shouted, and the preacher, his suspicions aroused at this outbreak of vehemence, looked searchingly at the man from the West. "I would not advise quite so stringent a measure," said he, turning his eyes upon Old Master and then directly his gaze again at Mr. Clem.
"Oh, yes," Mr. Clem insisted, "I would even go further than that. I would burn him at the stake and if he has any children I would skin them for the delight of the Sunday school. But I forget. Your denomination has no Sunday schools."
"Sir," said the preacher, "I will waive your sarcasm to refute your attack upon my church," and he had squared himself to deliver a harangue when Old Master struck the table with his fist. "I want an end of this right now," he snorted, shaking his head, and with his nose looking more than ever like an eagle's beak.
The preacher took no part of this reprimand to himself; indeed, he struck in with an approval of Old Master's violence. "You are scarcely expected to restrain yourself, Brother Guilford," said he. "The Lord has not asked us to put up with everything, and most of all with sentiments that seek the destruction of our country."
Is it not singular, I must stop to reflect, that only a few years ago a large part of our country believed that liberty and prosperity depended upon slavery? This old preacher I knew to be an honest man, a God-serving and a generous man. His plantation was large, his soil strong, his crops bountiful, and he gave nearly everything to the poor; but, viewing him in the broad light of to-day, his heart was narrow and his soul was blind. Such was the atmosphere in which we lived, beautiful and romantic, but filled with an inflammable gas; and one hot word would serve to set it off. I remember that at a store not far from our house a man sat on a box, reading the "New York Tribune." A deputy sheriff, standing near, discovered the name of the publication, tore it from the man's grasp, threw it upon the ground, spurned it with his foot and swore that he would shoot the person who attempted to take it up. The paper was not taken up, but the question was discussed at the polls, and the deputy was elected sheriff. Still the wise men in the East were at work quietly with the pen which soon should be supported by the sword.
Conversation that evening fell pleasantly enough, after Old Master's forceful veto, and out upon the veranda where the air was soft they sat until a late hour, Young Master with them, and I, seated on the steps. Mr. Clem sang a dolefully-comic song, "The State of Illinois," which moved the preacher to gracious laughter, and Old Master told many a humorous story. But in the height of this pleasantry Old Miss broke in with the trouble that was hers, one daughter dead and the other married and gone afar off. This I thought was to tell the preacher that it was time to pray and go to bed. And he must have accepted it as a hint, for shortly afterward he said: "Brother Guilford, let us pray!" Then came a solemn shuffle as they followed the preacher to his knees. I was included in the invitation to ask God to help me and I knelt upon the stone walk at the bottom of the steps. From a distance came the song of the ignorantly-happy negro; I heard the opening notes of a pack of hounds on a hill-side far away, and the creek lifted its voice in a sweeter prayer than man could utter. The preacher implored the Lord to bless Old Master's household, white and black; to hasten the day when the holy word of the Savior should be acknowledged throughout the earth. He prayed that all evil might be stricken from the sin-inclined mind of man; that the benighted politician who strove to prevent the admission into the union of more slave territory might be persuaded to see the error of interfering with the progress of the South, and closed with asking God to bless all mankind. The hanging lamp in the hall had been lighted, and as the old preacher passed under it I could see from where I now stood on the veranda that he tottered with emotion, so fervent had been his supplication; and I thought of the prayers in another part of our country; the gray men imploring our Father to hasten the time when the chain should drop from the slave. Ah, man, self-appointed keeper of the Maker's seal, you pray that your brother may be cleansed and then you shoot him. But I will not moralize against you, for I am earthly enough to believe that war is sometimes a blessing, that the world's greatest progress has been sprinkled with blood—blood, the emblem of the soul's salvation.