“I can’t holp it, brethren. I dunno what Sam’l done with his old clothes, nor why he hid ’em in a rock. I dunno ef they air Sam’l’s, an’ Teck Jepson don’t nuther. But”—he subtly felt the strength of his argument—“_he_ sha’n’t hender me! The devil sha’n’t hender me! I hev got my religion. ‘Oh, grace is mine! I hev got my sheer!’” he sang tremulously. Somehow the excited people did not join, and he went down into the black water to the music of his own quavering voice. The parson stood as if petrified in the midst of the stream. The lightning illumined his white hair, and the thunder rolled once more. The clouds were in motion; there was a dank smell of foliage in the air; rain had begun to fall somewhere in the mountains,—a matter ordinarily of interest to an unhoused crowd so far from any shelter or habitation. But they all remained motionless, watching the young man as he waded out to meet the venerable pastor. Suddenly the parson’s figure stirred. He lifted his arms; he was sternly waving the candidate away. “Until ye confess,—until ye confess!” he cried, striding toward the bank, presently lifting his voice into song, mechanically joining the rejected aspirant’s refrain, “Oh, grace is mine! I hev got _my_ sheer!” unconscious of any satiric meaning the words conveyed. The crowd took up the chant fragmentarily, amidst the pealings of the thunder and the sharp dartings of the lightning; it was broken, too, by their movement, for as they sang they were turning toward their wagons and horses. The first heavy drops of rain were falling as Jacob Baintree reached the rocky bank, scrambling up its rugged slopes into the very drear scenes of this world as he knew it. III. The energy of a persecutor for conscience’ sake is a robust endowment. Untrammeled by the sense of any personal shortcomings, by doubts, or extenuations, or denials; devoid of compassion or sympathy; insistent, blind, unreasoning, it affords unique opportunity for the display of consistency.