“The Book says, ‘There is a time for peace and a time to resist oppression.’” And I spoke up agin, bein’ bound to take John Richard’s part, and keep him from talkin’ all I could, sick as he wuz, and them plasters all a drawin’. I sez, “No doubt the colonies wuz preached to to set down in chains and enjoy religion, and give up all idees of independence; but our old 4 fathers couldn’t be made to feel so. They seemed to feel that the time had come when the Lord wuz a goin’ to lead ’em out into freedom. And they felt they wuz a preachin’ the Gospel of Liberty and Freedom, the backbones of Christianity, when they struck out for Independence.” [Illustration: A KU-KLUXER. ] Cousin John Richard looked real satisfied to me, though wan, as I went on, and sez he: “Yes, to resist intolerable and unjust laws has always been considered lawful and right.” “But,” sez Col. Seybert, “the Bible commands you, if you are smitten on one cheek to turn the other also.” “Then why don’t you do it?” sez I, all wrought up. “Your race has had centuries of Christianity to civilize and Christianize it, and why don’t you set a example to the ignorant ones? Mark out a sampler that they can foller on and copy. Why don’t your Regulators and your Ku-Kluxers turn their right cheeks? I’d love to have ’em turn ’em to me a spell,” sez I darkly. Col. Seybert kinder snorted out sunthin’ that I didn’t quite hear. I believe, and always shall, that there wuz a cuss word in it; but I didn’t care, and before I could speak agin, Cousin John Richard’s calm voice riz up a sayin’: “You say this race is totally ignorant and brutish, and yet you expect high qualities from them—extraordinary virtues. You expect patience more perfect than long years of training has given the white race. You expect endurance, nobility, forbearance, forgiveness of injuries and wrongs—in fact, you expect the goodness of angels and the wisdom of Solomon, and expect an insolvable problem to be solved by those you rank with your cattle. “It is a strange thing,” sez Cousin John Richard, as he lay back agin on his cushions. But I went up and gin him a spoonful of spignut before I let him speak agin. Col. Seybert waved off John Richard’s noble rebuke, and went on on his old ground: “Your teachers and preachers have overrun the South ever since the War, with your carpet-bags full of Bibles and hymn-books, and tracts, and spelling-books. Why don’t you sit down now and wait and see the fruit of your labors ripen about you instead of encouraging them in this preposterous idea of colonization?” But Cousin John Richard sez gently but strongly: “Perhaps this is the fruit that the Lord of the harvest is causing to spring up from the seeds planted in the hearts of this people. Perhaps the full ripening of this fruit depends upon the sunshine of another and a calmer sky.”