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ing he was stiff, and sore, and lame, and although the ground was cold and damp, it was easier to lie there than to get up. His hair became matted,--his fingers were long and bony. Each day his clothes became more ragged. When he first entered the prison, he tried to keep himself clean and free from vermin, but in vain. One day he went out to wash his tattered clothes, but the stream was so dirty he sat down and waited for it to become clear. He sat hour after hour, but it was always the same slimy, sickening stream. The Rebels took delight in deluding the prisoners with false hopes,--telling them that they were soon to be exchanged and sent home; but instead of release, the dead-cart went its daily rounds, bearing its ghastly burden. That was their exchange, and they looked upon the shallow trenches as the only home which they would ever reach. Hope died out and despair set in. Some prisoners lost their reason, and became raving maniacs, while others became only gibbering idiots. Some who still retained their reason, who all their lives had believed that the Almighty is a God of justice and truth, began to doubt if there be a God. Although they had cried and begged for deliverance, there was no answer to their prayers. Paul felt that his own faith was wavering; but he could not let go of the instructions he had received from his mother. In the darkest hour, when he was most sorely tempted to break out into cursing, he was comforted and reassured by Uncle Peter, an old gray-headed negro, who had been a slave all his life. Peter had been whipped, kicked, and cuffed many times by his hard-hearted, wicked master, not because he was unfaithful, but because he loved to pray, and shout, and sing. Through the long night, sitting by his pitch-knot fire in his cabin, Uncle Peter had sung the songs which lifted him in spirit almost up to heaven, whither his wife and children had gone, after cruel whippings and scourgings by their master. It was so sweet to think of her as having passed over the river of Jordan into the blessed land, that he could not refrain from shouting: "O my Mary is sitting on the tree of life, To see the Jordan roll; O, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll! I will march the angel march,-- I will march the angel march. O my soul is rising heavenward, To see where the Jordan rolls."
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