"'Neighbor, prudence being the twin brother of peace, and both being acceptable to heaven, I have thought it well to restore thee thy pig, that thou mayest comfort him. He has eaten up my chickens, it is true, and he has otherwise done me grievous harm; but I freely forgive him, seeing that heaven made him a brute. Thou mayest take care of him; do for him what seemeth good; and know that as a christian I bear thee no malice. Let the good offset the evil, and I will trust in heaven to repair the loss I have suffered.'" The nonresistant held that kindness was of itself so great a weapon, that it would incite generosity in the major-in a word, that he would give all his tin ware, with old Battle thrown in, rather than let such goodness suffer. But the major was not so easily seduced, and, calling the nonresistant a miscreant, he again bid him begone, or he would hasten his exit with the toe of his boot. On assenting to sit in judgment on the case in dispute, I took the precaution to stipulate that peace be preserved, and that the one should keep his lips sealed while the other was making his statement. But the parson commenced his statement by declaring the pig to be possessed of the devil; indeed it could not be otherwise, he said, since the strange antics it performed, and which he minutely described, betrayed a desire in him only to do evil. This the major immediately rose to dispute; and thrusting his hands into the ample pockets of his breeches, he declared with great emphasis, that he would not hear a word said against the pig's morals and sagacity, seeing that he had been reared and educated in the care of the clergy. In truth, he had given out so many proofs of rare sagacity, that the major stated it as his intention to speedily proceed with him to New York, there to have his "Life and Times" written by the erudite Easley, who was said to be strangely profound as a critic, in which capacity he wrote for three newspapers, and read for three or more publishers, all of whom where celebrated for not selling less than one hundred thousand copies of every work to which they affixed their imprint, though it was said of them that they had thrown to the public no end of literary carrion, which Easley had praised.