t attention to the fiery eloquence of the delicate, youthful
messenger, whose soul seemed on fire.

A gentleman who had heard Arrington writes:

"He was then young, delicate, as brilliant as a comet, and almost as
erratic. Without research or mental discipline, he could electrify
an audience beyond all living men, and arouse in the minds of those
who heard him the wildest enthusiasm."

For some cause, possibly never to be explained, he suddenly abandoned
the ministry, began the study of the law, and when a little past
the age of twenty-one, was admitted to the bar. After some years of
successful practice in the rude frontier courts of Arkansas, he
removed to Texas, where he was soon appointed a judge, and assigned
to the Rio Grande circuit. In addition to his judicial labors, he
now wrote and published some graphic and interesting sketches of
border life, vivid pictures of conditions then existing in the
Southwest among a people the like of which we shall not see agin,
a people upon whom the restraints and amenities of civilized life sat
but lightly, who were in large degree a law unto themselves, and
with whom revenge was virtue.

One of his publications, "Paul Denton," still has a place in many of
our libraries. It is, in part, a narrative of the thrilling
experiences of an early Methodist circuit-rider--presumably himself
--upon the southwest border. In this will be found his marvellous
apostrophe to water, which, as was said by Judge Dent, "was so
familiar to the lecture-going public of the last generation owing to
its frequent declamation from the rostrum by the temperance lecturer,
Gough."

The hero of the book, Paul Denton, had been announced to preach at
a famous Spring, where "plenty of good liquor" was promised to all
who would attend. During the sermon, a desperado demanded:
"Mr. Denton, where is the liquor you promised?"

"There!" answered the preacher in tones of thunder, and pointing
his motionless finger at a spring gushing up in two strong columns
from the bosom of the earth with a sound like a shout of joy.
"There," he repeated, "there is the liquor which God the Eternal
brews for all his children. Not in the simmering still over the
smoky fires choked with poisonous gases, surrounded with stench of
sickening odors and corruptions, doth your Father in heaven prepare
the precious essence of life--pure cold water; but in the green
glade and grassy dell, where the red-deer wanders and the ch