to her prolific colored population; he had seen this difficulty growing for many years, and had collected considerable information on the question.
It will be seen that just as in his days of health so in these days of sickness my father's mind travelled over a variety of subjects, all of which he spoke upon with his customary clearness and incisiveness. The one subject he did not touch upon—save for the passing words I have already noted—was religion, and it was quite natural that he should not. He had no new information to give me on theology, and there was nothing I wished to ask him. We each knew the opinions of the other, and it was a knowledge of such long standing that it took a very subsidiary place in our thoughts. To the nurses and doctors, who were in a manner bound to listen to him, it would not even have occurred to him to speak upon the matter.
After my father relapsed into unconsciousness, his mind wandered a great deal, but never did he speak a word that had the remotest bearing upon religion. His thoughts seemed mostly happy thoughts, spoken in a cheerful tone and with a smile. The very last words I heard him utter during the night of his death were reminiscent of his voyage to India. Never throughout the whole time did my father by sign or sound indicate that there was the smallest change in his opinions.
I am told that such evidence as the foregoing is not sufficient; if I cannot prove that my father on his deathbed positively renounced Christianity, and affirmed his Atheism, then it is open to Christians to say he espoused it. I suppose it is open to Christians to call white black if they wish to, even in the face of every evidence of whiteness; but that does not blacken the white, it merely blackens the Christian. If honorable men should for a moment accept such an argument, I would remind the Protestant that when death's shadows are darkening his eyes he must find strength to denounce Popery or he admits he is a Papist, the Catholic must abjure Islamism or he proclaims he is a follower of Mohammed, and both must express their dying detestation of Atheism else they shall be known after death as Atheists.
