Mathew Joseph Holt

“ During the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said: ‘Logan is the friend of the white man.’ I had even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. ”

“ If a hog is shifted from the sty to a state of nature, he lifts his snout from the mud and in time acquires the courage of a wild boar; if a man returns to a state of nature, he becomes a savage. Take an Indian, educate him in your great school Harvard; if he returns to his tribe, he cuts the seat from his trousers and wraps himself in a blanket. The desert nomads, wandering over the site of the birthplace of civilization, philosophy and religion, scarcely glance at the half-buried ruins about them, and live as did their fathers five thousand years ago. ”

“ He looked northward, ready, it afterward seemed, to give up that work which the men of his mother’s people had followed for many generations and become a planter in the cane-brake country; the price Captain Fairfax demanded for Dorothy. To John an insistent voice kept saying: “A planter can do almost as much good as a preacher; you can still serve God but in another way; merely dilute the stringency of your puritanism; be human, a he-man; make life more a game and less a crusade; smile and the world will smile with you; God gave Dorothy to you!” ”

“ The resolution carried by a bare majority.
When Virginia’s action was officially noticed, Pitt speaking against the Act said: “I rejoice that America has resisted! Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to have made slaves of all the rest. I know the valor of your troops, the force of this country; but in such a case success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the state and pull down the constitution with her.” ”

“ That night John met Captain Fairfax as he was returning from looking after his horses, which had been grain-fed preparatory to continuing their journey in the morning; and without preliminary, as was his way, asked for his daughter.
The Captain, taken by surprise, as bluntly declined. Then ashamed of his bluntness, explained: “You know Dorothy is of gentle birth as are you on your father’s side. Your mother’s people for generations have been preachers or teachers, they are of an old family though not of the nobility, and she is as good a woman as ever lived. ”

“ The slowly fading spirit of John is entering the lists in conflict with Sandy’s materialism; it is the conflict of the intangible with the tangible, the memories of yesterday with the hopes of tomorrow. You will act as second for one or the other. Faithful in the start you may follow behind the spirit; but if you follow the way of your sisters, and they go the right way, you will end by wishing you were second to the man who seeks to drive the wraith away. ”

“ There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. The war is inevitable, let it come! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
His resolution, because of the opposition of Pendleton, Nicholas, Harrison and Bland, would have been defeated except for his eloquence, though he was supported by Lee and Jefferson. Its adoption, coupled with his speech of “War is inevitable, let it come!” defined Virginia’s position; not only to the colonies but to the world. ”

“ If it is your desire to surrender your freedom, to be slaves, let us go back to our own people. I would rather be taxed without representation by my father’s own people, who speak and think as I and who are a growing, virile, prosperous race and who respect their treaties, than be a citizen of such a decadent power as Spain; which even the least astute back-woodsman can perceive has passed the zenith of her power, though temporarily mistress of Louisiana and the Mississippi. ”

“ John Calvin, who was the only child in the village permitted to go where he pleased, even to the council lodge and that of the medicine man, each day climbed to the summit and for an hour or more sat upon the signal rock, scarcely moving, lost in dreams or visions. The whole tribe watched him with superstitious awe.
Rumor of the child’s strange conduct spread throughout the Mingo nation and fierce, wild chiefs and warriors would watch him seated in silence upon the mound and as he walked about the village deferentially made room for him. ”

“ John, I love life and joy and gayety but I also love helping others. I love serving God; but as a king should be served, with praise and thankfulness. I think a song of thanksgiving is as divine worship as tears of penitence, though each in order. If you will wait, and you and I are but twenty, in time he will come around to mother’s and my way of thinking. We run the Captain, though he is often victor in the preliminary skirmish. ”

“ The markers of the other graves, as the earth that held the remains of the dead, was carted and dumped into the old creek bed, to redeem and transform a bend into a building lot.
The Town Company was a progressive corporation, and corporations are soulless institutions, yet the recitation upon the tombstone of Calvin Campbell might have saved for it a place of honor in the city hall. But what matter, he is risen, he is present with his Lord who gives every man according as his work shall be. ”

“ THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, who created the soul and gave to the tongue words of wisdom, Listen! and I will tell you the story of a king and an elephant; of a man who rose above environment and of an elephant who was a victim of it ”

“ The five negro slaves with their three children, driving the three ox wagons and bringing up the rear, whistling, singing and laughing, were the boisterous ones of the party. The three Indians, Colonel Campbell and Richard Cameron took the lead, and John, when he was not driving the Fairfax carriage, rode with them, conversing with his Indian friends. The Indians were the watchful, silent leaders by day, and one of them with a white companion, the guard by night. ”

“ What right have we to think that the universe was made simply for the man we know? Is it an unreasonable flight of fancy to assume that God has spoken through his prophets and given his Son for the redemption of the men of other worlds than our own? The Bible literally says, the universe was made for man, because, though inspired, it is man-worded and God spoke to man through his prophets in a comprehensive language. ”

“ They are cannon fodder; mere pawns in the game of nations, moved about by one who sits in the sun and serves the devil.
Before the millennium, there must be a world wide charity, to take the place of what we call patriotism; which is either national selfishness or a make-shift provincialism. There must be a development of the national soul until man knows no nation; and in a national sense loves his neighbor as himself. The first step towards it is to understand that those calamities that are destroying an enemy country do not halt at the yellow map boundary that marks our own land. ”

“ Sometimes the tears miss their mark and fall into the sea, and they become pearls. The little shell fish which live upon the bottom where it is dark gather and store these treasures in their homes, because in passing from sky to sea they have taken into their hearts the colors of the rainbow and the sun. When the Son of God was nailed upon the cross, the angels hiding their faces lost track of earth and drove their chariots far out to sea, where, in the dark, undisturbed depths the sad old shell fish dwell; and as they traveled most of them were too sad even for tears ”

“ The wind blew from the desert. Shortly past midnight he ceased swaying and lifted his great ears, stood for a moment as a great beast of bronze; then he raised his trunk aloft and trumpeted an alarm that was heard by half the city. The wind had borne to his keen sense of smell the pungent odor of the camel, the scent of the missing from his herd and given warning that his old enemies, Chalginna’s troopers, were at hand. ”

“ Long after Massachusetts had proven a refractory daughter, Virginia, better satisfied, seemed to New England to lack independence of spirit, political skill, and to possess only a dormant sense of liberty.
The propaganda of the non-conformists, declaring for civil and religious liberty, suddenly gripped most potently the conformist or Tidewater families, who overnight, seemed to throw off their lethargy; and thenceforth exhibited such valor, high patriotism and broad statesmanship as to give them first place in the struggle for liberty and domination of America for the next two generations. ”

“ He prayed: ‘Thy kingdom come,’—and it has come for him; while you and I weep, refusing to be comforted; until we learn that those we love must pass to the other side, in order that His kingdom may come for us, and we escape death for ourselves and lose the fear of death for our dear ones.
“It is thus we find happiness in our anguish; and love for God while we suffer from the raw realities of life; knowing he has found us worthy of both love and unhappiness. ”

“ You are using me as I in turn propose to use Brown, Sebastian, Fairfax and Innes and some lesser gentry.
“It is not necessary to suggest to a gentleman of your knowledge and experience that the human race in all parts of the world is governed by its own interest, although variously modified. Some men are sordid, some vain, others ambitious. To detect the predominant passion, to lay hold of it and to derive advantage from it, is the most profound part of political science. ”

“ At sundown one evening, they landed at Chickasaw Bluffs, the deserted site of an old Chickasaw town and where in 1698 the French had built a fort. Pulling their pirogue well up on the bar, they climbed the bluff to buy provisions at Isaac Taylor’s Station.
Ballinger and Logan went into the cabin but John stood outside looking first up and then down the river, charmed by the magnificent view and for a time oblivious of immediate surroundings. Then down the river not more than a quarter of a mile, he observed two boats loaded with Spanish soldiers, and headed for their landing. ”

“ Again, though Christianity is one of the three religions that teaches universality and though God knows no race and no people, extending to all a universal promise, man in combined conceit and prejudice declares I am of God’s chosen people. The reason is obvious; take Judaism; it has never countenanced universality; to the Jew, God was the god of the Jews—and surrounded by idolatrous nations—to their inspired prophets they were the chosen people of God, having been taught by precept and by experience that God discriminates in his temporal blessings between an idolater and a follower. ”

“ The church must be more universal, laying aside doctrinal jealousies and divergences; turn its energies to the harvest; self-sacrifice and co-operation must reign; love must seek her own and think no evil—then when all ask, expecting to obey, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me do?’—the Mussulman will turn Christian and the wolf and the lamb lie down together. ”

“ One drink a day for each man is all you can have. If you are thirsty drink the water in the bottom of the boat, it is fresh.’ He set the example by doing so; and more than half of us within the hour drank our fill of the dirty, blood-discolored water; and we nine who drank were the only ones who lived to reach the coast of Spain.
“The man, Clark, I am satisfied, is alive, but held as prisoner or slave by some Barbary pirate or desert chief.” ”

“ Monroe’s mission should prove inauspicious one opinion will pervade all America. We shall then possess but one mind and one arm. The patriotism of the country will banish all party distinctions, and the breast of every citizen will burn with indignation. * * * Let us await with patience his return—with that silent expectation, which, prepared to meet with joy the news of a happy issue, is nevertheless, if disappointed, ready to inflict a blow that will let all Europe know that, though difficult to be aroused, America acts with vigor and effect. ”

“ A preacher who shirks his work, remouthing to a weary congregation his old sermons, must not complain if men do not listen. He must work in the vineyard; men do not go to a theatre to hear a sermon or to a church to see vaudeville. He is not to give his time to platitudes and polemics and phylacteries and lectures and dissertations on doctrinal divergences. He must be free and must speak from his heart as the ambassador of Christ, preaching Christ; and preaching is the giving of the message of Jesus to a needing soul. ”

“ Coercion makes opinion stronger and constraint makes hypocrites, not converts.
“Again history demonstrates that the persecutor accomplishes nothing except his own undoing; while the persecuted one, if an advocate of a great truth, grows to greater things. By persecution faith grows; it lifts the vail for the persecuted one and he sees into the Holy of Holies.
“Truth can stand alone. Truth is inherently inextinguishable. It offers something the world must have. It will never die an outcast. If Scribes and Pharisees will not hear, Publicans and sinners will listen. ”

“ He would spend his whole life in the valley—if only Dorothy were here; * * * man must not live alone; * * * she alone were needed to make this as paradise, before the fall of man.
* * * What have you to do with fallen men? “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” * * * Not as you love the stars. Are you to remain here cradled in the lap of nature? A wood nymph of six feet two? Why your great strength?—your broad shoulders? Why a man that can discern? Why a voice? Why a soul?—and one that has visions of the glory of God. ”

“ My brother, the Prophet, comes tomorrow. He loves you people, but he loves his brother more; nor will he permit a woman of his tribe to be held a prisoner without cause. Let there be peace. Let the prisoner go. I have no right to demand the release of the other prisoner. You are at war with the whites. She was taken in battle; she is an enemy, not an ally; but as your friend I would advise you not to war upon women and children.”
(The Chief) “Chief Cross-Bearer is right; the woman who is the daughter of Logan must be released. It is the law of the Confederacy.” ”

“ Is your poverty, due to sacrifice, so unbearable that you will barter your freedom in order that you may be made temporarily prosperous by the sale of a few pounds of tobacco?
“Is the need for money so pressing, is your impatience for its possession such, that you cannot allow the Federal Government time to organize, to put into operation a constitution just adopted and to make treaties which in decency and in order and without color of treason, will gain for you the perpetual free navigation of the river and commercial privileges, which will never be hampered by export duties? ”

“ The first decade succeeding the Revolution was marked by a serious demoralization which found expression in an increase of vice and crime; and as never a crime wave sweeps state or nation that great reformers do not arise to combat it, so now Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian preachers, enjoying at last a provident religious emancipation; preaching a gospel of law and retribution rather than of love, worked zealously and courageously combating the condition. ”

“ Then turning to the council he said: “This child is of the sacred priesthood. He has the look in his face and eyes and his body is without blemish, as is required by the order. Let no one do him harm or cross his will, because in what he does he will be guided by the Great Spirit. The night before Logan brought him I saw the boy in a dream and was told of his coming and his mission. It is one of peace. He will be the friend of all men; of Long Knives and Indians alike. He does not know your language and will be carried home by Logan before the flying of the cahonks or the first snow-fall. ”