“You know what they passed through who preached the higher truth in Jerusalem. The Book says, ‘They were persecuted, afflicted, tormented, had cruel buffetings and scourgings, were burned, were tortured, not accepting deliverance.’ “In the early days after the war, in some parts of the South there were hardly any indignities that could be inflicted upon us that we were not called upon to endure. We had our poor houses burned down over our heads, our Bible and spelling-books thrown into the flames; we have had rifles pointed at our breasts, and were ordered to leave on peril of death. “And many, many more than you Northerners have any idea of met their death in the dark cypress forests and in the dreary, sandy by-ways of the Southern States. “They died, ‘not accepting deliverance’ by cowardly flight. How many of them thus laid down their lives for conscience’ sake will never be known till that hour when _He_ comes to make up His jewels. “I bear the marks upon me to-day, and shall carry them to my grave, of the tortures inflicted upon me to make me give up my work of trying to help the weak and seek and save them that were lost.” “The dumb fools!” hollered out Josiah. “What did they act so like idiots for—and villains? The Southerners always did act like the Old Harry anyway.” [Illustration: “THE DUMB FOOLS!” ] My dear companion is fervid and impassioned in his feelin’s and easily wrought on, and he felt what he said. John Richard wuz a relation on his own side, and he could not calmly brook the idee of his sufferin’s. But Cousin John didn’t look mad, nor excited, nor anything. He had a sort of a patient look onto his face, and as if he had tried to reason things out for some time. “Such a state of affairs was inevitable,” sez he. “Then you don’t blame the cussed fools, do you?” yelled out Josiah, fearfully wrought up and agitated. Oh, what a word to use, and to a minister too—“cussed”! I felt as if I should sink right down into the suller—I wuz about over the potato ben—and I didn’t much care if I did sink, I felt so worked up. But Cousin John Richard didn’t seem to mind it at all. He had got up into a higher region than my soul wuz a sailin’ round in—he had got up so high that little buzzin’, stingin’ insects that worried me didn’t touch him; he had got up into a calm, pure atmosphere where they couldn’t fly round. He went on calm as a full moon on a clear night, and sez he: “It is difficult to put the blame for this state of affairs on any one class, the evil is so far spread. The evil root was planted centuries ago, and we are partaking of its poison fruit to-day. “In looking on such a gigantic wrong we must look on it on other sides than the one whose jagged edges have struck and bruised us—we must look on it on every side in order to be just.