re
good-bye.
YOUR HAPPY MISSIONARY GOLD DOLLAR.
CHILDREN'S PAGE.
THE STORY OF THE BULLETS.
Among some unpublished papers of the late Rev. Dr. Pike, we find the
following story, which we know will be of interest to our readers, both
from the sketch itself and the association with its author:
A few years after Gen. Hooker fought his famous battle of the clouds, I
visited Lookout Mountain, and, while searching for some memento on the
battle-field, picked up a slightly bruised rifle bullet. This to me was
a real prize. It was not too large, it would keep.
A slight illness, aggravated by the fatigue of the day, induced me to
accept the urgent request of a former acquaintance to spend the night
with him upon the mountain. During the evening, I chanced to show him
the bullet, saying I thought myself quite fortunate in finding it.
"Oh," said he, "that's nothing. A colored woman after the battle
gathered and sold so many that she was able to purchase a cow with the
money, and now that cow supports her family."
I left Chattanooga the nest morning, and thought no more of the incident
for a dozen years. A short time since, however, I was spending the night
in a small village in one of the mountain towns of Tennessee. At
nightfall, looking out from my hotel, I observed a company of colored
people ambling along towards a low wooden meeting-house, and time
hanging heavily on my hands, I decided to join the dusky worshipers. I
slipped in, therefore, when the meeting was a little under way, and
allowed myself to be ushered up to the front seat, directly under the
eye of an intelligent looking young man who proved to be the preacher
for the occasion. After a few opening services, which embraced the usual
variety in ordinary churches, the minister took for his text the
passage, "Ask, and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and
it shall be opened unto you."
"Now," said he, when he had gotten on well with his introduction, "you
must not believe you will surely receive precisely the thing you ask for
in just the way you might like it. Let me give you an illustration from
my personal experience. When a little boy, I lived with my mother on the
southern slope of Lookout Mountain, and remember well the day that Gen.
Hooker fought his great battle up there and how he and his soldiers
marched bravely away. For a long time the children and the grown people
searched the battle-fields over, day after day, hoping t
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