munity.
It'll not be stood. When colored mourners come up to the
front--h-they'll come in troops--where'll you put 'em?"

"I'd put them wherever there's room for them," was the heroic reply.

"Oh, there'd be room for them everywhere," laughed Garnet, "for as far
as _our_ young folks are concerned, the whole thing would be a complete
frazzle. Why, you take a graceless young fellow, say like John March.
How are you going to get him to come up here and kneel down amongst a
lot of black and saddle-colored bucks and wenches?--I word it his way,
you understand. No, sir, as sure as we try this thing, we'll create
dissension--in a church where everything now is as sweet and peaceful as
the grave."

"Of course we mustn't have dissensions," said Parson Tombs.

Mr. Usher, who spoke last and very slowly, said but a word or two. He
agreed with Brother Garnet. And yet he believed this was a message from
on high to be up and a-doin'. "This church, brethren, has jest _got_ to
be replaastered, an' _I_ don't see how we goin' to do it 'ithout we have
a outpourin' o' the spirit that'll give us mo' church membehs."

So the good parson dropped the matter, and saw how rightly he had
followed the divine guidance when only a day or two later the
"university" insulted and exasperated all Suez by enrolling three young
white women from Sandstone. The _Courier_, regretting to state that this
infringed no statute, deprecated all violence, and while it extolled the
forbearance of the people, yet declared that an education which educated
backward, and an institution which sought to elevate an inferior race by
degrading a superior, would compel the people to make laws they would
rather not enact. The Black-and-Tannery's effort for a union revival
meeting lay at the door of "our church," said Garnet smilingly to Sister
Proudfit, "as dead as Ananias." The kind pastor was troubled.

Yet he was gladdened again when Barbara, on horseback, brought word from
"pop-a" that he had found half a dozen of his students praying together
for the conversion of their fellows, and that the merest hint of revival
meetings in Suez had been met by them with such zeal that he saw they
were divinely moved. "Get thee up, brother," the Major's note ended,
"for there is a sound of abundance of rain."

"Is it good news?" asked Barbara. The white-haired man handed her the
note, joyfully, and stood at her saddle-bow watching her face as she
gravely read it.

"Bless the Lor