"Do not make me out an advocate of slavery. I am not fonder of it than you are, Harry. It has brought trouble enough upon us, and will bring us worse still." "It can never bring upon us anything worse than itself." "When you have disposed of slavery, what are you going to do with the slaves?" "Slavery disposed of, there are no slaves. The men I would leave where they are, to till the ground as they till it now, only better. There has never been a time or a place in which men did not work for their family, their community, their State. The black man will work for his family, as soon as he has one,--for his community, as soon as he is a member of one,--for the State, as soon as we admit him to a share in it." "You will not dare to say of these poor beings that they are capable of self-government?" "Which of us would dare to say it of himself?" replied Harry, reverently; "and yet God trusts us." "If He intends for them what He has bestowed on us, He will grant it to them." "Through us, I hope." "In His own time. "'Never the heavenly fruits untimely fall: And woe to him who plucks with impious haste!' Remember the words of your favorite Iphigenia:-- "'As the king's hand is known by lavish largess,-- Little to him what is to thousands wealth,-- So in the sparing gift and long-delayed We see the careful bounty of the gods.'" "Those are the words of a Pagan priestess," Harry answered. "The hand of our God is not known by its parsimony. He does not force on us what we will not accept, but His bounty is limited only by our trust in it. Ask large enough!" he exclaimed, springing up, and standing before us,-- "'Ask large enough! and He, besought, Will grant thy full demand!'" "Who says that?" asked the Doctor. "The greatest religious poet of the old time, translated by the greatest of the new,--David, by Milton." It was I who answered,--for Harry, absorbed in his own thoughts, had not heard the question. "You uphold him!" cried the Doctor, almost accusingly. He rose presently and walked off for home. Harry and I followed, but at a little distance, for he had the air of wishing to be alone.