called flagellants. I certainly was in a state of complete
oblivion to everything but a dreamy fanaticism, and yet that term is too
harsh, and it would be impiety to call it holiness, seeing that it was
in a state of inutility,--and yet, many well-meaning persons will think,
no doubt, that my infant and almost sinless hand had hold of a blessed
link of that chain of ineffable love, which terminates in the breast of
that awful Being, who sits at the right-hand of the throne of the
Eternal. I give, myself, no opinion. I only state facts. But I cannot
help hazarding a conjecture of what I might have been, had I then
possessed a friend in any one of my instructors, who could have pointed
out to me what were the precincts of true piety, what those of incipient
insanity. At that time I had the courage to achieve anything. Let the
cold-hearted and the old say what they will, youth is the time for moral
bravery. The withered and the aged mistake their failing forces for
calmness and resignation, and an apathy, the drear anticipator of death,
for presence of mind.

However, this state of exalted feeling had a very ludicrous termination.
I ceased fighting, I was humble, seeking whom I might serve, reproving
no one, but striving hard to love all, giving, assisting, and actually
panting for an opportunity of receiving a slap on one side of the face,
that I might offer the other for the same infliction. The reader may be
sure that I had the Bible almost constantly before me, when not employed
in what I conceived some more active office of what I thought
sanctification. But though the spirit may be strong, at times, the body
will be weak. I believe I dozed for a few minutes over the sacred book,
when a wag stole it away, and substituted for it the "renowned and
veracious History of the Seven Champions of Christendom." There was the
frontispiece, the gallant Saint George, in gold and green armour,
thrusting his spear into the throat of the dragon, in green and gold
scales. What a temptation! I ogled the book coyly at first. I asked
for my Bible. "Read that, Ralph," said the purloiner; oh! recreant that
I was, I read it.

I was cured in three hours of being a saint, of despising flogging, and
of aping Samuel.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

RALPH RECEIVES AN INFUSION OF PATRIOTISM--IS HIMSELF DRILLED AND DRILLS
A TOUCH HOLE--HE TURNS OUT A MONSTROUS BIG LIAR--SOMEBODY COMES TO SEE
HIM WHOM NOBODY CAN SEE, AND THE MYSTERY EN