An Unoficial Patriot

in character.

eal Roman mother, was a proposition too absurd to be considered; and the old Major met his son's first suggestions, wherein this tendency was indicated, as the mere

all things. 'Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,' you know, Grif. Good old saying. Bible truth, my son. But who is the happy girl, you young scamp? There is rath

on covered with confusion, and with a sense of impotent zeal

really not lie at the root of his new unrest. He went to the Methodist meetings with a fresh determination to be serenely critical, and not to yield to the onrush of emotion which had grown so strong within him as he had listened, in the past, to the passionate and often ruggedly-eloquent appeals of the pioneers of the new faith-or, perhaps,

ed before it many of the most sincere and forceful characters and questions. Beyond a few twittings and an occasional growl, therefore, the old Major had ignored his son's gradual withdrawal from the ancient forms and functions and the fact that almost every Sunday morning, of late, had found the boy absent from the family p

uckled within himself all day. When evening came and Griffith appeared at the table

rhms me that to-morrow is your nineteenth birthday, you long-legged young gosling, and that you contemplate celebrating it by t

his humor. The picture he had conjured up in his own mind of this son of his in the new social relations sure to result from the contemplated change of faith sw

ly, "Majah! Majah!" But the old 'squire's sudden plunge into anger had hi

very! Why don't they read their Bibles if they know enough to read? It teaches slavery plain enough-'Servants obey your masters in all things,' and 'If a man sell his servant,' and 'His servant is his money,' and a good many more! Why don't they read their Bibles, I say,

t,

Shouting and having fits and leading weak-minded women and girls, and weaker-minded boys and niggers into unpardonable, disgraceful antics and calling it religion! Actually having the effrontery to call it religion! It's nothing but infernal rascality in half the cases and pitiable insanity in the other half, and if I'd been d

al family jar; for few indeed had ever been the occasions upon which even a mild degree of paternal authority had not been so quickly followed by ready and wi

leaving his untouched plate of choice f

the old Major. "Take your seat, s

ement of his hand toward a little book which he always carried these later days in his breast-pocket, he stepped to his mother'

ehead and passed swiftly out of the room. His horse stood at the front gate waiting the usual evening canter. Griffith threw his long leg over the saddle, and said to Jerry,

ed our lives upon such and such a model. All of which is-as a rule-mere fond self-gratulation. The fact is, although it may wound our pride to acknowledge it, that we followed the line of least resistance (all things being considered, our own natures included) and events did the rest. And so when Grif turned an angle in the road, two miles from home, and came suddenly upon the circuit rider, who was to baptize the new converts on the following day, and when Brother Prout took it for granted that Grif was on his way to the place of gathering in order to be present at the p