ess. A strong and cruel hand was wielding the
knotted cords; they sunk deep into the flesh, and thou mightst have
tracked every reel and totter of my footsteps by the blood that
followed. As we went on--"

"Have I not borne all this; and have I murmured?" interrupted Pearson,
impatiently.

"Nay, friend, but hear me," continued the other. "As we journeyed on,
night darkened on our path, so that no man could see the rage of the
persecutors, or the constancy of my endurance, though Heaven forbid that
I should glory therein. The lights began to glimmer in the cottage
windows, and I could discern the inmates as they gathered in comfort and
security, every man with his wife and children by their own evening
hearth. At length we came to a tract of fertile land; in the dim light,
the forest was not visible around it; and behold! there was a
straw-thatched dwelling, which bore the very aspect of my home, far over
the wild ocean, far in our own England. Then came bitter thoughts upon
me; yea, remembrances that were like death to my soul. The happiness of
my early days was painted to me; the disquiet of my manhood, the altered
faith of my declining years. I remembered how I had been moved to go
forth a wanderer, when my daughter, the youngest, the dearest of my
flock, lay on her dying bed, and--"

"Couldst thou obey the command at such a moment?" exclaimed Pearson,
shuddering.

"Yea, yea," replied the old man, hurriedly. "I was kneeling by her
bedside when the voice spoke loud within me; but immediately I rose, and
took my staff, and gat me gone. O, that it were permitted me to forget
her woful look, when I thus withdrew my arm, and left her journeying
through the dark valley alone! for her soul was faint, and she had
leaned upon my prayers. Now in that night of horror I was assailed by
the thought that I had been an erring Christian, and a cruel parent;
yea, even my daughter, with her pale, dying features, seemed to stand by
me and whisper, 'Father, you are deceived; go home and shelter your gray
head.' O Thou, to whom I have looked in my furthest wanderings,"
continued the Quaker, raising his agitated eyes to Heaven, "inflict not
upon the bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated agony of my soul,
when I believed that all I had done and suffered for thee was at the
instigation of a mocking fiend! But I yielded not; I knelt down and
wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more fiercely into the
flesh. My prayer w