“Is it not too bad, and does it seem possible that this great evil will be suffered to endure forever?”

“No,” said Clara, “neither possible nor probable.  I may not live to hear with these earthly ears the glad news, but you, Emily, will live to see the bond go free, and the serpent of slavery lie at the feet of America, who will place her heel on its crushed and bleeding head.  This will be, must be, and the years will not number so very many between now and then.”

“Why do you think so, Clara?”

“Oh!  I do not think it; I know it to be true; I have long known it; it stands by the side of the beautiful truth we have heard from the lips of that venerated preacher, Emily, and I cannot see why we may not all be in some measure the recipients of these truths, for they lie all around us on every hand.  Did you ever read, Emily, of the man called Dr. De Benneville?”

“Never,” said I; “tell me, please, his history.”

“It was printed about 1783.  I think I have it.”

“Well, tell me, Clara, a little; I cannot wait for that now.”

She smiled and said: 

“Dear child, how glad I am that you have so good a heart, and some day these impulses will drive your boat on the shore of peace that lies waiting for us on the bay of truth.  But you are anxious and I will tell you.  Dr. George De Benneville was the son of a Huguenot, who fled to England from persecution, and was employed at court by King William.  His mother was a Granville, and died soon after his birth in 1703.  He was placed on board a ship of war—­being destined for the navy—­at the early age of twelve years, and received on the coast of Barbary singular religious impressions, induced, it is said, by his beholding the kindness of the Moors to a wounded companion.  He had great doubts regarding salvation, but after suffering for months with doubts, the light was made clear to him, and he held to his heart the faith in a universal restitution.  His great sense of duty led him to preach, and he commenced in the Market-house of Calais in his seventeenth year.  He was fined and imprisoned, but did not desist.  He sought and found co-laborers, and persisted two years in preaching in the woods and mountains of France.  At Dieppe he was seized, and with a friend, Mr. Durant, condemned.  Durant was hanged, and while the preparations for beheading De Benneville were in progress, a reprieve from Louis IX arrived, and after a long imprisonment in Paris, he was liberated through the intercession of the Queen.”

“Good,” I said, “she had a heart.”