May we
ask, sir, what office you hold?'
'It is my office to do the work which God assigns to me in this
world.'
'The work of God, sir, is the greatest of all works, and those are
fortunate who are chosen to do it.'
Their respect for me evidently increased when they took me for a
clergyman. I was dressed in black.
'In the first place, it is my duty to tell you that God does not
punish the innocent for the guilty, and that the perjury in courts
has nothing to do with the diminution of returns from the soil. Where
you apply water and manure, and alternate your crops, you always get
good returns, do you not?'
'Very good returns; but we have had several bad seasons that have
carried away the greater part of our population; but a small portion
of our lands can be irrigated for want of wells, and we had no rain
for two or three years, or hardly any in due season; and it was this
deficiency of rain which the people thought a chastisement from
heaven.'
'But the wells were not dried up, were they?'
'No.'
'And the people whose fields they watered had good returns, and high
prices for produce?'
'Yes, they had; but their cattle died for want of food, for there was
no grass any where to be found.
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