nt that will speedily make it a loyal, prosperous, and
_intelligent_ section of the Union.

I would interfere with no one's rights, but a rebel in arms against his
country has no rights; all that he has "is confiscate." Will the loyal
people of the North submit to be ground to the earth with taxes to pay
the expenditures of a war, brought upon them by these Southern
oligarchists, while the traitors are left in undisturbed possession of
every thing, and even their slaves are exempted from taxation? It were
well that our legislators should ask this question now, and not wait
till it's asked of them by THE PEOPLE.]

CHAPTER IX.

THE COUNTRY CHURCH.

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered, some
time previous to our arrival at the church door, that the services had
commenced, for the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs. He
evidently thought the Lord either a long way off, or very hard of
hearing. Not wishing to disturb the congregation while at their
devotions, we loitered near the doorway until the prayer was over, and
in the mean time I glanced around the vicinity.

The "meeting-house," of large unhewn logs, was a story and a half in
height, and about large enough to seat comfortably a congregation of two
hundred persons. It was covered with shingles, with a roof projecting
some four feet over the walls, and was surmounted at the front gable by
a tower, about twelve feet square. This also was built of logs, and
contained a bell "to call the erring to the house of prayer," though,
unfortunately, all of that character thereabouts dwelt beyond the sound
of its voice. The building was located at a cross-roads, about equally
distant from two little hamlets (the nearer nine miles off), neither of
which was populous enough to singly support a church and a preacher. The
trees in the vicinity had been thinned out, so that carriages could
drive into the woods, and find under the branches shelter from the rain
and the sun; and at the time of my visit, about twenty vehicles of all
sorts and descriptions, from the Colonel's magnificent barouche to the
rude cart drawn by a single two-horned quadruped, filled the openings.
There was a rustic simplicity about the whole scene that charmed me. The
low, rude church, the grand old pines that towered in leafy magnificence
around it, and the soft, low wind, that sung a morning hymn in the
green, wavy woods, seemed to lift the soul up to Him who