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THE FARMER AND SOLDIER.
61


"Yes, and those prayers followed me. But for them, I should have been a reprobate. They plucked me as a brand from the burning, when I thought myself forsaken both of God and man."

As his strength permitted, he told them the story of his wanderings and sufferings. He had been in battles by sea and by land. He had heard the deep ocean echo with the thunders of war, and seen the earth drink in the strange, red shower from mangled and palpitating bosoms. He had stood in the martial lists of Europe, and jeoparded his life for a foreign power, and had pursued in his own land, the hunted Indian, flying at midnight, from his flaming hut. He had gone with the bravest, where dangers