o which I replied, when it was
announced and proclaimed that on a certain Sabbath, at 10 A.M., this
minister would answer _The Democrat_. At the appointed hour the house
overflowed, and people crowded around the doors and windows, while Gen.
Lowrie occupied a prominent seat in the audience.

It surely was an odd sight to see that preacher mount the stand,
carrying an open copy of _The Democrat_, lay it down beside the Bible,
and read verse about from the two documents. The sermon was as odd as
the text. It disposed of me by the summary mode of denunciation, but
also disposed of David, Solomon and Miriam at the same time. When I gave
the discourse a careful Scriptural criticism, I carried the community,
and was strengthened by the controversy. But another, more serious and
general dispute was at hand.

When Theodore Parker died, the orthodox press from Maine to Georgia,
handed him over to Satan to be tormented; and then my reputation for
heresy reached its flood-tide.

Rev. John Renwick, one of our Covenanter martyrs, was my ideal of a
Christian, and when he lay in the Edinburg prison under sentence of
death, his weeping friends begged him to conform and save his life. They
said to him:

"Dinna ye think that we, who ha' conformit may be saved?"

"Aye, aye. God forbid that I should limit his grace."

"An' dinna ye think, ye too could be saved and conform?"

"Oh, aye aye. The blood of Christ cleanseth fra all sin."

"Weel, what mair do ye want, than the salvation o' yer saul?"

"Mair, mickle mair! I want to honor my Master, and bear witness to the
truth."

To satisfy this want, he died a felon's death. The central idea of that
old hero-making Westminster theology was, that man's chief end is to
glorify God first, and enjoy him forever when that is done. In all the
religious training of my youth, I had never heard the term "seek
salvation." We were to seek the privilege of serving God; yet I was
willing to be dead-headed into heaven, with the rest of the
Presbyterians.

A Protestant Episcopal convention had pointedly refused to advise
members of that church to respect the marriage relation among their
slaves, and so had dimmed the Elizabethian glory of a church which once
stood for freedom so nobly that the winds and waves became her allies,
and crowned her with victory. The General Assembly had laid the honor of
its martyrs in the dust by endorsing human slavery; and I must be false
to every conviction if I d