"If one does not subscribe to the creeds, he is written down a heretic.

I have laughed at folly, and so have won the reputation of being an unbeliever.

Yet, Wayland, if we ride forth to a savage death to-morrow, no one will meet it with more faith in Christ than I.

The years indeed have not left me spotless, but I have never wavered from the great truths my mother taught me.

I know not the future, lad, but I believe there is ever mercy for the penitent." In an instant my own thought spanned the leagues of forest to my distant home; and I choked back a sob within my throat.
"It is our mothers' love that makes us all better men," I said gravely.
"And whatever may befall us upon the morrow, that God of whom they taught us will be true." "The words are spoken in the right spirit," he returned, soberly, "and have the soldier ring I like best to hear.