rthrown,--and they never did have so good a
friend. If he would stay here and work gradually, and get his System of
Theology printed,--and Simeon Brown would help at that,--and only drop
words in season here and there, till people are brought along with him,
why, by-and-by something might be done; but now, it's just the most
imprudent thing a man could undertake."

"But, mother, if it really is a sin to trade in slaves and hold them, I
don't see how he can help himself. I quite agree with him. I don't see
how he came to let it go so long as he has."

"Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "if worst comes to worst, and he will do it,
I, for one, shall stand by him to the last."

"And I, for another," said Mary.

"I would like him to talk with Cousin Zebedee about it," said Mrs.
Scudder. "When we are up there this afternoon, we will introduce the
conversation. He is a good, sound man, and the Doctor thinks much of
him, and perhaps he may shed some light upon this matter."

Meanwhile the Doctor was making the best of his way, in the strength of
his purpose to test the orthodoxy of Simeon Brown.

Honest old granite boulder that he was, no sooner did he perceive a
truth than he rolled after it with all the massive gravitation of his
being, inconsiderate as to what might lie in his way;--from which it is
to be inferred, that, with all his intellect and goodness, he would have
been a very clumsy and troublesome inmate of the modern American Church.
How many societies, boards, colleges, and other good institutions,
have reason to congratulate themselves that he has long been among the
saints!

With him logic was everything, and to perceive a truth and not act in
logical sequence from it a thing so incredible, that he had not yet
enlarged his capacity to take it in as a possibility. That a man should
refuse to hear truth, he could understand. In fact, he had good reason
to think the majority of his townsmen had no leisure to give to that
purpose. That men hearing truth should dispute it and argue stoutly
against it, he could also understand; but that a man could admit a truth
and not admit the plain practice resulting from it was to him a thing
incomprehensible. Therefore, spite of Mrs. Katy Scudder's discouraging
observations, our good Doctor walked stoutly and with a trusting heart.

At the moment when the Doctor, with a silent uplifting of his soul to
his invisible Sovereign, passed out of his study, on this errand, where
was th