ote? Come now, I will tell you something."

"You are telling me much."

"I will tell you--that night, when Carlisle would have killed you
in your room there, when I afterward put you all on parole--"

"Yes, yes."

"I saved you then; and sent them away. Do you know why?"

"I suppose it was horror of more blood."

"I don't think so. I believe it was just for this--for this very
talk I'm having now with you. I saved you then so that some day I
might demand you as hostage.

"I want you to vote with me," she continued, "for the 'higher law.'
I want you to vote with the west-bound wheels, with God's blades of
grass!"

"God! woman! You have gift of tongues! Now listen to me. Which
shall we train with, among your northern men, John Quincy Adams or
William Lloyd Garrison, with that sane man or the hysterical one?
Is Mr. Beecher a bigger man than Mr. Jefferson was?"

"I know you're honest," she said, frowning, "but let us try to see.
There's Mr. Birney, of Alabama, a Southerner who has gone over,
through all, to the abolitionists as you call them. And would you
call Mr. Clay a fool? Or Mr. Benton, here in your own state, who--"

"Oh, don't mention Benton to me here! He's anathema in this state."

"Yet you might well study Mr. Benton's views. He sees the case of
Lily first, the case of the Constitution afterward. Ah, why can't
_you_? Why, Sir, if I could only get you to think as he does--a
man with your power and influence and faculty for leadership--I'd
call this winter well spent--better spent than if I'd been left in
Washington."

"Suppose I wanted to change my beliefs, how would I go about it?"
He frowned in his intent effort to follow her, even in her
enthusiasm. "Once I asked a preacher how I could find religion,
and he told me by coming to the Saviour. I told him that was
begging the question, and asked him how I could find the Saviour.
All he could say was to answer once more, 'Come to the Saviour!'
That's reasoning in a circle. Now, if a man hasn't _got_ faith,
how's he going to get it--by what process can he reach out into the
dark and find it? What's the use of his saying he has found faith
when he knows he hasn't? There's a resemblance between clean
religion and honest politics. The abolitionists have never given
us Southerners any answer to this."

"No," said she. "I can not give you any answer. For myself, I
have found that faith."

"You would endure much for your convictions?"