It is not to our purpose to report the doings of that political Rifle Club’s meeting—the stirring speeches of citizens of the State, who forgot that they were also citizens of the Nation against which their treasonable resolutions were moved, discussed, and voted; nor the inflammatory harangues of Deacon Atwood; nor the courageous utterances of one little man of broader intelligence and views than his neighbors, who urged that the coming political campaign be prosecuted in a fair, straightforward, lawful and honest manner, which should command respect everywhere, and convince the hitherto intractable colored voters that their former masters were disposed to accept the situation resultant upon the war, and with their support, reconstruct the politics of the State upon a basis of mutual interests, in place of the antagonism of races which had prevailed ever since the emancipation and enfranchisement of the slaves. While these discussions relieved over-accumulations of eloquence and over-wrought imaginations, they also disclosed the true state of feeling, and the deep smouldering embers of bitterness that once “fired the Southern heart” to fratricidal war. Unfortunately, good and calming counsels often gain least by interchange of expression with those of passion, and so it came that young men, and men whose years should have brought them ripe judgment, but did not, shuddered the next morning at the recollection of words they had uttered, and decisions made in that club-room, from which it would be difficult to recede. Betrayed by his sanguine temperament and his implacable foe—the love of strong drink—Deacon Atwood was one of these. “It’s a pretty pass when a man at yo’r time of life stays out till two o’clock in the mornin’ drinkin’, and mercy knows what, I do declar!” said Mrs. A. as she met her liege lord at the door of their domicile, “And takin’ his only son out to initiate him, too, and yo’ a church officer.” “Wh—wh—why didn’t yo’ go to bed, Ja—Ja—Janette, I didn’t ex—ex—expect to find yo’ up.” “No, I shouldn’t reckon yo’ did, judging by yo’ exes. Making a fool and a beast o’ yo’self, and tempting yo’ son, when we’ve been praying for his conversion so long.” “Wal Ja—Janette, yo’ ’ort to ha’ prayed for me, too, fo’ I’ve made a ’nough sight mo’ fool o’ myself than Wat has o’ hissen. But I’ve been true to the State,” drawled and stammered the Deacon, with thick and maudlin utterance, “and if I could stand as much w’iskey as some on em, I’d a’ been true to myself also. But who’s been here, Ja—Janette?” Vainly trying to stand erect, and pointing with nerveless finger to an armful of crooked sticks that lay upon the blazing hearth. “Who brung ’em in?”