'It's a wonnerfu' sicht. It's the cake o' Ezekiel ower again.'
He looked at me sharply, thought a moment, and said,
'You were going my way when you stopped. I will walk with you, if
you will.'
'But what's to be done about it?' I said.
'About what?' he returned.
'About the child there,' I answered.
'Oh! she is its mother,' he replied, walking on.
'What difference does that make?' I said.
'All the difference in the world. If God has given her that child,
what right have you or I to interfere?'
'But I verily believe from the look of the child she gives it gin.'
'God saves the world by the new blood, the children. To take her
child from her, would be to do what you could to damn her.'
'It doesn't look much like salvation there.'
'You mustn't interfere with God's thousand years any more than his
one day.'
'Are you sure she is the mother?' I asked.
'Yes. I would not have left the child with her otherwise.'
'What would you have done with it? Got it into some orphan
asylum?--or the Foundling perhaps?'
'Never,' he answered. 'All those societies are wretched inventions
for escape from the right way. There ought not to be an orphan
asylum in the kingdom.'
'What! Would you put them all down then?'
'God forbid. But I would, if I could, make them all useless,'
'How could you do that?'
'I would merely enlighten the hearts of childless people as to their
privileges.'
'Which are?'
'To be fathers and mothers to the fatherless and motherless.
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