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."