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The Reign of Law; a tale of the Kentucky hemp fields by James Lane Allen
page 104 of 245 (42%)
rights and its wrongs. What honest voices as compared with the
human--sometimes. No question of sincerity could have been raised
by any one who heard THEM speak. It may not have been music; but
every note of it was God's truth.

The man laughed heartily as he paused a moment and listened to that
rejoicing uproar. But he was touched, also. To them he was the
answerer of prayer. Not one believed that he ever refused to succor
in time of need, or turned a deaf ear to supplication. If he made
poor provision for them sometimes, though they might not feel
satisfied, they never turned against him. The barn was very old.
The chemical action of the elements had first rotted away the
shingles at the points where the nails pinned them to the roof;
and, thus loosened, the winds of many years had dislodged and
scattered them. Through these holes, rain could penetrate to the
stalls of the horses, so that often they would get up mired and
stiff and shivering; but they never reproached him. On the northern
side of the barn the weather-boarding was quite gone in places,
and the wind blew freely in. Of winter mornings the backs of the
cows would sometimes be flecked with snow, or this being stubbornly
melted by their own heat, their hides would be hung with dew-drops:
they never attributed that fact to him as a cruelty. In the whole
stable there was not one critic of his providence: all were of the
household of faith: the members being in good standing and full
fellowship.

Remembrance of this lay much in his mind whenever, as often, he
contrasted his association with his poor animals, and the troublous
problem of faith in his own soul. It weighed with especial
heaviness upon his heart, this nightfall in the barn, over which
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