"Virginia is an idolatrous land," said he; but he could not look up at
me.

"And are your Indians not idolaters? Are you no idolater, with your
burnt offerings and heathen gibberish? You worship a Baal and a Moloch
worse than any Midianite, for you adore the devils of your own rotten
heart."

The big man, with all the madness out of him, put his towsy head in his
hands, and a sob shook his great shoulders.

"Listen to me, John Gib. I am come from your own country-side to save
you from a hellish wickedness, I know the length and breadth of
Virginia, and the land is full of Scots, men of the Covenant you have
forsworn, who are living an honest life on their bits of farms, and
worshipping the God you have forsaken. There are women there like
Alison Steel, and there are men there like yourself before you
hearkened to the devil. Will you bring death to your own folk, with
whom you once shared the hope of salvation? By the land we both have
left, and the kindly souls we both have known, and the prayers you said
at your mother's knee, and the love of Christ who died for us, I adjure
you to flee this great sin. For it is the sin against the Holy Ghost,
and that knows no forgiveness."

The man was fairly broken down. "What must I do?" he cried. "I'm all in
a creel. I'm but a pipe for the Lord to sound through."

"Take not that Name in vain, for the sounding is from your own corrupt
heart. Mind what Alison Steel said about the devil of pride, for it was