"But," we asked, "why does not the faculty at once interfere in this disgraceful procedure?"
"They have got us lately," he replied, "where we are powerless. Whenever they wish a spree, they tackle it on to the slavery question, and know that their parents will pardon everything to the spirit of the South when it is burning the effigy of Mrs. Stowe or Charles Sumner, or the last person who furnishes a chance for a spree. To arrest them ends only in casting suspicion of unsoundness on the professor who does it."
Virginia has had, for these same causes, no religious development whatever. The people spend four-and-a-half fifths of their time arguing about politics and religion,—questions of the latter being chiefly as to the best method of being baptized, or whether sudden conversions are the safest,—but they never take a step forward in either. Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, stated to us, that, once being in Richmond, he resolved to give a little religious exploration to the surrounding country. About seven miles out from the city he saw a man lying down,—the Virginian's natural posture,—and approaching, he made various inquiries, and received lazy Yes and No replies. Presently he inquired to what churches the people in that vicinity usually went.
"Well, not much to any."
"What are their religious views?"
"Well, not much of any."
"Well, my friend, may I inquire what are your opinions on religious subjects?"
"The man, yet reclining," said the Archbishop, "looked at me sleepily a moment, and replied,—
"'My opinion is that them as made me will take care of me.'"
The Archbishop came off discouraged; but we assured him that the man was far ahead of many specimens we had met. We never see an opossum in Virginia—a fossil animal in most other places—but it seems the sign of the moral stratification around. There are many varieties of opossum in Virginia,—political and religious: Saturn, who devours his offspring, has not come to Virginia yet.