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SLAVES AND WAR-TIMES.
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or reverently. His faith was that of a little child, without a doubt, or shadow of one. He did not seem even to know what was meant by religious doubts. I do not believe that in the course of his life he ever questioned the truth of revealed religion for five consecutive minutes. The subject did not interest him, and he never took part in any conversation bearing on it.

And yet he was not a communicant, and he was passing through life with that error fixed in his mind, that one must feel worthy before one can without hypocrisy become a communicant. It was a happiness to him to see his children go up to be confirmed as they grew up. In his humility, he thought them better than himself.

One Sunday only himself and a daughter were left in the house; everybody else was away. She had not thought of going through with the services under the circumstances. But her father asked,—

"Will you not have the services, my child?"

"I had not meant to do it. I thought that we could read to ourselves."

"I want you to read the services, my dear," he said, in his humble, gentle way that always came when he spoke of these things. So they two went through the full service together.

When they were not far from the end, there came a knock at the door; a neighbor had come to spend the day. His daughter thought that Thomas would not ask her to go on, as the visitor was one who was not a religious man. But he said at once,—

"My daughter and I are having prayers."

And the visitor joined in with a very earnest face. He had not before seen this side of my father's character.

In the spring of 1863 Thomas Dabney began to feel that his children were in one of the worst places in the world for non-combatants, the neighborhood of a beleaguered city. He lamented that all his children were not sons. He longed more and more to go into the army as the fighting drew closer to us. He ordered an army uniform to be made for himself, and we feared