VIII
THE LOG TEMPLE OF JUSTICE
Most of those dauntless soldiers, who first bore the cross through the
wilderness were as ready to fight as to pray--as they had to be. No
power of earth or evil which he had been able to combat could have
turned young Peter Cartwright that day or have held him back. Pressing
on without rest or food, he was in time to preach. When this duty was
done, he returned over the Shawnee Crossing and rode straight to the
court-house. To go there was in his eyes the next service due the Word.
The court-house was a single large, low room built of rough logs, and
standing in the depths of the primeval forest. Great trees arched their
branches over its roof and the immemorial "Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes,"
went up through their heavy dark tops. It must have been strange thus to
hear this formal summons before the bar of human justice, strange indeed
to see the precise motion of man's law in so wild a spot. Roundabout
there still stretched the wilderness which is subject only to nature's
law--the one immutable law which takes no heed of justice or mercy;
which recks neither man's needs nor his deserts.
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