The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-03-26
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST UNION LEAGUE.


The war had come to Bradley's
Crossing The little Salem meeting
house in which the Union men under
Father Peters had SO often and SO fer
vently prayed for peace was smolder-
ing ruin. The men who had burned it
down were as savagely jubilant over
their work as if they had won a great
battle against great odds, and the I'm
ion men were correspondingly despond-
ent.
Strong Dick Bradley and the men
who had been converted in the little
meeting house were startled at the de-
struction. They had come to speak of
the place as ''the house of God," and
this meant to them not simply q place
for worship, but a structure sanctified
by the divine presence and under the
divine care, and as such as safe against
fire as the hills themselves.
why did God let the house burn?"
"Why did he permit his people, and
| particularly so good a man as Father
| Peters, to be persecuted?" why did he
not smite hip and thigh the profane
wretches who had done this thing?"
These were the questions that puz-
| zled the Union men who belonged to
the church, and failing to receive sat
isfactory answer the most soundly con-
verified felt that he was falling from
grace, and that if the Lord did not af-
ford miraculous help at once he must
sever the connection, for the time being
at least, and try to help himself after
the old mountain methods.
A habit supposed to be dead invari-
ably asserts itself with greater force
after it is resurrected. This was certain
ly the case with strong Dick Bradley,
the blacksmith He had been noted for
his profanity among people where
even the children lisp in oaths He had
been famed as fighter in community
where the ability to fight is regarded as
the highest and noblest attribute of
manhood, and where the desperate who
has killed his man or men is enyied as
the wild Indians envy the warrior who
has taken the most scalps.
1t was generally believed that the
blacksmith's religion, while making
him safer and so more desirable
neighbor, had entirely unnamed him,
! and that even so arrant q braggart as
Het Magoone could safely treat him
with contempt and set him at defiance.
But strong Dick Bradley's religion, OF
at least that part of it that had curbed
his tongue and his arm, went up and
vanished in the smoke of the meeting
house, and for four terrible years both
had full swing.
While Bradley s religion had received
so severe a check, the effect of this at.
tack was to turn his earnest mission
feelings into blind fanaticism that
was to find delight in contlagrations and
soothing comfort in blood. Father
Peters, who had just been praying by
the blacksmith's side, and now stood
holding his arm while they watched the
play Of the flames destroying the mis-.
sion, forgot his own danger and his own
loss rs he noted the old, black scowl Oh
the face and the devilish light flashing
up in the deep gray eyes of strong Dick
| Bradley.
''If Jesus Christ won't perfect the
place we uns hez fixed up snug TO- him,
that's his look out Hill be id
I long time afoah he hez another SO good
a show in these hills. But, by the great
! Eternal, the men 81 hez did this'll have
to pay the insurance in blood Hold
thar Het Magoone, God cuss yo' TO q
dog and a coward! I've got somethin
to say afoah yo' uns ride off"
ITO be Continued.