FOREWORD 219 WHERE THE TROUBLE ARISES 223 OUR PROBLEM 225 THE INSPIRATION OF THE OPPOSITION 226 STILL IN THE BALANCES 228 HE WHO HAS HITHERTO FOLLOWED CALLED UPON TO LEAD 231 REVISITING THE ORIENT 233 CLASPING HANDS 234 RENOVATION 237 WHERE TO BEGIN 239 "THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME" 240 RELIGION A FACTOR 244 TO WEAR WELL OUR CROWN 245 IN THE UPPER REALMS 247 "OF MAKING MANY BOOKS THERE IS NO END" 249 WE EAT TO LIVE 251 LITTLE AFRICAS 253 "YE HAVE THE POOR WITH YOU ALWAYS" 254 THE WINDS HAVE VEERED 255 "THE FIELD IS THE WORLD" 256 WHERE THE GALE BLOWS FIERCEST 257 WITH THE HEN GOES HER BROOD 265 THE PROBLEM OF THE OTHER MAN 266 OUR LAST FOE 269 MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD 271 THE END DRAWETH NIGH 274 CHAPTER I. AN ANGLO-SAXON'S DEATH. Gently the midsummer breezes rustled the green leaves of the giant oaks and towering poplars that stood guard over the Dalton house, which, as though spurning their protection, rose majestically above them and commanded a splendid view of the Tennessee fields and woodlands, stretching far out on either side of the leisurely flowing Cumberland. The subdued whisperings of the winds, their elf-like tread as they cautiously crept from tree top to tree top, tended to create the suspicion that they were aware of the tragedy which their mother, Nature, was so soon to enact within the walls of the house around which we now see them hovering. In a sumptuously furnished room of this magnificent structure, Maurice Dalton, the present owner thereof, lies dying; battling heroically yet losingly in that last, inevitable conflict which he had been summoned to wage with the forces of decay. The head of this dying Anglo-Saxon rests, in these its last moments, on the bosom of Aunt Catherine, an aged Negro woman, who was his first and loving nurse in infancy, and has been his one unswerving friend and worshipper in all of his after life.