t was right to do so. I asked if he had ever read the life
of Paul with attention, and this question appeared to amuse him still
more; and then he told me he had been through the Book of Acts in Sunday
school, and had learned several chapters in it by heart; but for all
that he had never thought of St. Paul as a hero.

I asked him what made a hero,--if it was not courage in the time of
danger.

"Yes," he said, "but it must be in action, not in words."

I reminded him then of some of the Grecian orators, who made themselves
immortal by their speeches, when their country was in danger, and asked
if their words were not considered heroic.

This question puzzled him a little, and he was not willing to own that
it was a similar case, but I defied him to find a Greek or Roman who had
hazarded his life more freely for the good of others than St. Paul. Then
I turned to the chapter containing Paul's speech before Agrippa, and
asked him where he could match its eloquence. Then I read over the
account of the sufferings of this brave Apostle, and demanded of David
whether any other man could give a catalogue of so many and great evils
so manfully borne. Finally, we reviewed the story of Paul's shipwreck at
Melita, and David was forced to avow that my hero showed a calmness and
self-possession in that hour of danger which few mariners display.

If I only had had you to help me argue the point, I should have made him
own that Paul was very far superior to Alexander the Great.

You must not think, from what I say of David, that New England boys are
not as piously brought up as the Virginians; for I believe the
generality of them are much better instructed; but you know we have had
peculiar advantages, and David has been but little at home with his
mother, and his father cannot teach him what he does not himself know.
David will be a good man one of these days, and would be better now if
he had not the idea that there was something manly in being wicked. I am
so glad that I was not brought up to think the same, for I begin to see
how true it is, that, the older we grow, the more difficult it is for us
to change our course.

There is poor Moody Dick! I really believe he would like to be a better
man. They say that he is not more than twenty-five, but I thought that
he was over thirty, for his face is wrinkled already, and there are gray
hairs around his temples.

Yesterday, David and I were talking about our sisters. I told him