e
pores of his skin, and after praying and fasting nine days he was
healed. And the Spirit appeared to me again, and said, as the Saviour
had been baptized, so should we be also; and when the white people
would not let us be baptized by the Church, we went down into the water
together, in the sight of many who reviled us, and were baptized by the
Spirit. After this I rejoiced greatly and gave thanks to God."

The religious hallucinations narrated in his Confession seem to have
been as genuine as the average of such things, and are very well
expressed. It reads quite like Jacob Behmen. He saw white spirits and
black spirits contending in the skies, the sun was darkened, the thunder
rolled. "And the Holy Ghost was with me, and said, 'Behold me as I stand
in the heavens!' And I looked and saw the forms of men in different
attitudes. And there were lights in the sky, to which the children of
darkness gave other names than what they really were; for they were the
lights of the Saviour's hands, stretched forth from east to west, even
as they were extended on the cross on Calvary, for the redemption of
sinners." He saw drops of blood on the corn: this was Christ's blood,
shed for man. He saw on the leaves in the woods letters and numbers and
figures of men,--the same symbols which he had seen in the skies. On May
12, 1828, the Holy Spirit appeared to him and proclaimed that the yoke
of Jesus must fall on him, and he must fight against the Serpent when
the sign appeared. Then came an eclipse of the sun in February, 1831:
this was the sign; then he must arise and prepare himself, and slay his
enemies with their own weapons; then also the seal was removed from his
lips, and then he confided his plans to four associates.

When he came, therefore, to the barbecue on the appointed Sunday, and
found, not these four only, but two others, his first question to the
intruders was, How they came thither. To this Will answered manfully,
that his life was worth no more than the others, and "his liberty was as
dear to him." This admitted him to confidence, and as Jack was known to
be entirely under Hark's influence, the strangers were no bar to their
discussion. Eleven hours they remained there, in anxious consultation:
one can imagine those terrible dusky faces, beneath the funereal woods,
and amid the flickering of pine-knot torches, preparing that stern
revenge whose shuddering echoes should ring through the land so long.
Two things were