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upon His justice, and a lie to His divine goodness? What if he snapped his finger at a lake of brimstone and of eternal fire? And his wild ravings about an inconsistent Being, accepted as the head of all wisdom, and tenderness, and mercy, and at the same time as the perfection of all cruelty and injustice, in that He creates only to destroy, -- what if the seed scattered should take root? What if those old sinblackened souls should comfort themselves with the new doctrine, the idea that no good can be lost? God cannot be God and destroy any good thing. It is wicked, it is devilish to kill that which is good. God cannot be wicked and be the good God, the kind All-Father, at the same time. Nor has He created any so vile as to be without some one virtue. In the dust of the evil He has not failed to drop one grain of gold to glisten, and to make glad the dull waste of life. The grain is there, planted by God's hand, in every soul. It was in their souls, poor, old, sin-covered, forsaken souls, toiling up to the light through those begrimed walls among the filth, and dust, and mould. Not one of them but was God's work, and bore His grain of gold. None would be lost, not one. What matter if the prison registrar's table of deaths did record so many, Found dead! Drowned! Killed! Shot! Blank! Blank! Blank! Meaning they disappeared, nobody knows how or when.

It was a strange, sweet hope to them, that came in that wild sermon of a bishop-silenced, young heretic. They thought about it a good deal, and began, some of them whose terms were to expire with life, to dig down into the rust and mire with the spade of conscience for the hidden grain.

The minister was at the stockade often, cheering, sympathizing, and always comforting the convicts with the certainty of eternal love, and the folly of eternal punishment. One day he stumbled upon a man who was being strapped and prepared for punishment at the pump. His face was sullen, and there were splotches of blood on his clothes, and he limped when he attempted to walk. Still there was something in the old, young face, that neither cruelty nor threats could kill. They might turn on the icy water, and exhaust themselves with lashing him, but that stoic determination would not yield. They might murder him, but from his fixed, dead eyes, it would glare at them, that same heroic,

immovable something that had shone in the staring eyes of his dead mother.

No visitors were allowed in that part of the prison, so the minister held back until, fearing the limp figure under the pump would be beaten to death by the cruel pour of water upon his head, he stepped forward to interfere.

"In God's name, I beg you stop," he cried, his hand uplifted, his eyes full of tears. "Your punishment is beastly. What has the fellow done? Is someone murdered?"

"Someone ought to be," sullenly replied the man at the pump-handle. "And someone might be if this sneaking rascal was the only hope of preventing it."

There had been a plot among the convicts to batter down the shaky old stockade, and break for freedom. They had secured a gun and some ammunition, where, no one could tell, and the plot had well-nigh succeeded. The guard on the wall had been killed, three men had escaped, and the prison. bloodhounds were lying in the kennel with their throats cut.

Already the governor of the State had telegraphed freedom to the convicts not in the scheme who would give the names of those engaged in it. Even the leader's name; for that freedom was offered, pardon unconditional.

Something let fall discovered to the warden that Jim, while not in, was familiar with the whole history of the insurrection. The offer of freedom had no further effect upon him than a careless refusal to comply with the terms set forth. But when force was suggested, he set his lips in that old way that belonged to his mother, and said nothing. Three days they gave him to "knock under." But the only change noticeable during that time was a more decided sullenness, a look in the cold, gray eyes that meant death rather than yielding.

Once the soft-voiced young man who had put out his hand in his defence the day of his arrival at the stockade, and had afterward called him "friend," the only time he had ever heard the word addressed to himself, once he came over where Jim sat cleaning the warden's boots, and motioned him.

Jim shook his head, and went on blacking the big boots. But when the young convict drew nearer, and tried to take his hand, he drew back, and struck at him viciously with the blacking brush.

"Git out, will you! And don't come a-fooling with this brush, lest you want your d-n head broke."

He had seen a guard spying upon them at a half open door in the rear of the young convict. At Jim's outburst of temper the guard entered.

"Come away from him, Solly," he said, "the surly beast is as like as not to knock your brains out."

The convict turned to obey, but the glance he got of Jim's face carried a full explanation. The temper was affected to keep down suspicion. After that came the punishment at the pump, the merciless beating, and then, all things proving unavailing, he was put in the dungeon to have the "truth starved out of him."

After three days he was brought out, faint, pale, ready to die at every step, but with that same immovable something shining in his eyes, and his lips still set in the old way that he had of his mother.

His hands were manacled, and an iron chain clanked about his feet as he dragged them wearily one after the other. For three days he had tasted no food, except a rat that he had caught in the dungeon. He ate it raw, like a dog, and searched eagerly for another. Just as he had found it, and skinned it with the help of his teeth, the guard peered through the grating, and seeing what he was doing, entered, and put handcuffs upon him, after first removing the raw flesh to a point where he could see, but not touch it. And there it lay, torturing him while he starved. And there it lay until it became carrion, and tortured him again. And then they had dragged him out again, out under the blue sky, where the trees- the old sweet-smelling pines were waving their purple plumes upon the distant mountains, and the wild grape filled the air with perfume, and the wild roses were pink as childhood's sweet, young dreams, and over all was bended the blue heaven. And heaven spread before him, heaven; behind him lay hell, fifteen years of it less one. And they gave him choice. again betwixt the two. They even crammed a bit of moral in the offer. "It was right," they said, "to tell on those who had broken the prison regulations, mere justice to the lessees." Right too late to talk to him of right. He glanced once at the pines, going farther away, whiffed at the pleasant odor of the grape blooms, waved his hand to the

roses, in farewell, perhaps, lifted his face to the blue heaven he had never looked heavenward before in all his wretched years, then, wearing that same old look of his mother's, he turned, without a word, and re-entered the prison.

Back to the pump, the lash, and at last to the dungeon. But he no longer dreaded it. It was the Sabbath, and the shackles had been removed, but he was too weary to notice. the rat that came out and sat peering at him, nibbling at his wet prison clothes, and his feet and hands. Even he carrion did not disturb any more. The scent of the wild grape And when the day wore

blooms was still in his nostrils. on, and the two o'clock bell sounded, calling the men to Sunday school, he started up with a cry of "Here." He had thought the bell a voice at the dungeon door, and fancied that it said, "friend!"

Could old

He dropped back, with a smile on his lips. Nance have peeped in at that moment she would have pronounced him very like his mother with that smile, and that stanch old heroism shining in his wide, dead eyes.

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Down in the office the registrar entered upon the death

list:

"James Royal -Natural death."

Natural? then God help the unnatural.

"The worst one ever fell into our hands," the warden told the minster as he came out of the chapel with the softvoiced friend of the dead man's. "Not a spark of good in him, parson. Jim Royal knocks your theory all to pieces.'

But the friend had been telling the minister a story. And as he passed out at the rattling stockade gate, he, too, glanced up at the blue sky. His doubts were gone, if there had been any, his faith was planted in God's eternal good

ness.

"Can such die?" he mused, "such faithfulness, such magnificent courage, such glorious fidelity? Is it possible that such can pass away into eternal torment?

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The soft wind touched his cheek and bore heavenward the he breathed:

prayer

"Forbid it, Almighty God.”

EDITORIAL NOTES.

The decision recently handed down RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE by Judge Hammond, of the United TO-DAY. PERSECUTED States District Court, in the celeFOR CONSCIENCE SAKE. brated case of R. M. King, is rich in lessons of vital importance to thoughtful minds at the present time of unrest, when conservatism is seeking on every hand, even under the cloak of radical movements, to secure statutes and legal constructions of laws which may at an early day be used to fetter thought, crush liberty, and throttle the vanguard of progress. Briefly stated, the important facts in the case in question are as follows: Mr. King is an honest, hard-working farmer. He is charged with no breach of morals; in fact, it appears that he is a remarkably upright man. But he is a Seventh Day Adventist; that is, he does not hold the same religious views as the majority in his State. He stands in the same relation to his countrymen as that occupied by the early disciples of Christ to Roman society when Nero undertook to punish Christians by kindling nightly human fires for the delectation of conservative or majority thought. He is of the minority, even as the Huguenots were in the minority when the Church tortured, racked, and burned them for the glory of God and the good of humanity. He is of the minority, as was Roger Williams when, in 1635, the popular and conventional thought of Salem banished him. Mr. King is not an infidel or even a doubter. On the contrary he is ardently religious, being a zealous and conscientious member of a sect of Christians noted for their piety and faith. The Adventists, of whom he is an honored member, it must be remembered, hold somewhat peculiar views about the second advent of Christ. They believe they find in the Bible commands making it obligatory upon them to keep holy the seventh day of the week, or the Hebrew Sabbath, instead of Sunday, the holiday and rest day observed by most Christian denominations. Now it was shown in the trial that, conforming to his belief, Mr. King strictly observed the Sabbath or Saturday, but being a poor farmer he could not afford to rest two days each week, or over one hundred days in the year, and, therefore, after having kept the Sabbath he plowed in his field on Sunday. This aroused the pious indignation of the narrow-minded and bigoted members of the community who profess to follow that great Leader who taught us to judge not, to resist not evil, and to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. These Christians (?) who, unfortunately for the cause of justice and religious liberty, are in the majority in Tennessee, had this conscientious, God-fearing man arrested as a common felon, and convicted of the heinous crime (?) of Sabbath-breaking by plowing on Sunday. He appealed to the Supreme Court, and the

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