Through God’s succeeding minute directions for the building and upholstery of His tabernacle, “with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them,” the interest of the little boys rather languished; likewise through His regulations about such dry matters as slavery, divorce, and polygamy.  His directions for killing witches and for stoning the ox that gores a man or woman had more of colour in them.  But there was no real interest until the good God promised His children to bring them in unto the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, to “cut them off.”  It was not uninteresting to know that God put Moses in a cleft of the rock and covered it with His hand when He passed by, thus permitting Moses a partial view of the divine person.  But the actual fighting of battles was thereafter the chief source of interest.  For God was a mighty God of battles, never weary of the glories of slaughter.  When it was plain that He could make a handful of two thousand Israelites slay two hundred thousand Midianites, in a moment, as one might say, the wisdom of coming to the Feet, being born again, and washing in the blood ceased to be debatable.  It would seem very silly, indeed, to neglect any precaution that would insure the favour of this God, who slew cities full of men and women and little children off-hand.  The little boy thought Milo Barrus would begin to spell a certain word with the very biggest “G” he could make, if any one were to bring these matters to his notice.

As to Allan, who made abstracts of the winter’s study, Clytemnestra and her transcendent relative agreed that he would one day be a power in the land.  Off to Florida each week they sent his writing to Grandfather Delcher, who was proud of it, in spite of his heart going out chiefly to the littler boy.

“So this is all I know now about God,” ran the conclusion, “except that He loved us so that He gave His only Son to be crucified so that He could forgive our sins as soon as He saw His Son nailed up on the cross, and those that believed it could be with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and those that didn’t believe it, like the Jews and heathens, would have to be in hell for ever and ever Amen.  This proves His great love for us and that He is the true God.  So this is all I have learned this winter about God, who is a spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom and power holiness justice goodness and truth, and the word of God is contained in the scriptures of the old and new testament which is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.  In my next I will take up the meek and lowly Jesus and show you how much I have learned about him.”

They had been unable to persuade the littler boy into this species of composition, his mind dwelling too much on the first-born of white rabbits and such, but to show that his winter was not wholly lost, he submitted a secular composition, which ran: