And while the earth stands, it shall stand, free to all Christian
believers. I will build a school-house and a meeting-house, where
any child may be free to learn and any man or woman free to
worship."

He put the Bible back with shaking arms and turned on them again.

"As for you, my brethren," he said, his face purple and distorted
with passion, "you may be saved in your crooked, narrow way, if the
mercy of God is able to do it. But you are close to the jaws of
Hell this day!"

He went over into a corner for his hat, took his wife by the hand
and held it tightly, gathered the flock of his children before him,
and drove them out of the church. He mounted his horse, lifted his
wife to her seat behind him, saw his children loaded on two other
horses, and, leading the way across the creek, disappeared in the
wilderness.




II


Some sixty-five years later, one hot day of midsummer in 1865--one
Saturday afternoon--a lad was cutting weeds in a woodland pasture;
a big, raw-boned, demure boy of near eighteen.

He had on heavy shoes, the toes green with grass stain; the leather