ffering fellow-creature, or for the promotion
of any charitable object, they would have found they had more in common
than all the special beliefs or want of beliefs that separated them
would amount to. There are always many who believe that the fruits of
a tree afford a better test of its condition than a statement of the
composts with which it is dressed, though the last has its meaning and
importance, no doubt.

Between these two churches, then, our young Iris divides her affections.
But I doubt if she listens to the preacher at either with more devotion
than she does to her little neighbor when he talks of these matters.

What does he believe? In the first place, there is some deep-rooted
disquiet lying at the bottom of his soul, which makes him very bitter
against all kinds of usurpation over the right of private judgment. Over
this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in general, bred out
of life-long trial, I should say, but sharply streaked with fiery lines
of wrath at various individual acts of wrong, especially if they come
in an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days when his mother's
great-grandmother was strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old
Testament for her halter. With all this, he has a boundless belief
in the future of this experimental hemisphere, and especially in the
destiny of the free thought of its northeastern metropolis.

--A man can see further, Sir,--he said one day,--from the top of Boston
State House, and see more that is worth seeing, than from all the
pyramids and turrets and steeples in all the places in the world! No
smoke, Sir; no fog, Sir; and a clean sweep from the Outer Light and the
sea beyond it to the New Hampshire mountains! Yes, Sir,--and there are
great truths that are higher than mountains and broader than seas, that
people are looking for from the tops of these hills of ours;--such as
the world never saw, though it might have seen them at Jerusalem, if its
eyes had been open!--Where do they have most crazy people? Tell me that,
Sir!

I answered, that I had heard it said there were more in New England than
in most countries, perhaps more than in any part of the world.

Very good, Sir,--he answered.--When have there been most people killed
and wounded in the course of this century?

During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt,--I said.

That's it! that's it!--said the Little Gentleman;--where the battle of
intelligence is fought, there