“Stand and hear him out,” whispered Alfred. “You will do him no harm, I am sure. You will not punish a man for his devotions, be their character what it may. Let Cassius be master for once. Let him teach us that which he understands better than we. He seems to have thought more than you or I on what Christ would say to our authority if He were here. I will go in when he rises, and hear more.” “For God’s sake, do not trust yourself with him. Let us go. Don’t ask him for water, or anything else. I will have nothing,—I am going home this moment.” “Then I will follow,” said Alfred, knocking at the door of the hut as soon as he saw that Cassius had risen and was about to replenish his fire. “Cassius, I have overheard some of your prayers,” he said, when he had explained to the astonished slave the cause of his appearance. “I was glad when you told me that you had been made a Christian; but your prayer is not that of a Christian. Surely this is not the way you were taught to pray?” “We were told to pray for the miserable, and to speak to God as our Father, and tell him all that we wish. I know none so miserable as slaves, and therefore I prayed that there might be an end of their misery. I wish nothing so much as that I and all slaves may be free, and so I prayed for it. Is it wrong to pray for this?” “No. I pray for the same thing, perhaps, as often as you; but——” “Do you? Do you pray the same prayer as we do?” cried the slave, falling at Alfred’s feet, and looking up in his face. “Then let us be your slaves, and we will all pray together.” “I wish to have no slaves, Cassius: I would rather you should be my servants, if you worked for me at all. But we could not pray the same prayer while you ask for revenge. How dared you ask that the overseer might die, and that your master might be poor, and see his estate laid waste, when you know Jesus prayed for pardon for his enemies, and commanded us to do them good when we could?” “Was it revenge?” asked Cassius. “I did not mean it for revenge; but I can never understand what prayer would best please God. I would not pray for my master’s sorrow and Horner’s death if it would do nobody any good, or even nobody but me; but when I know that there would be joy in a hundred cottages if there was death in the overseer’s, may I not pray for the hundred families? And if I know that the more barren the land grows, the more the men will eat, and the women sing, and the children play, and the sooner I myself shall be free, may I not pray that the land may be barren? And as the land grows barren, my master grows poor. You know the Gospel better than I do. Explain this to me.”