Miss Merton gave me her own Bible yesterday, and, at my request, she
pointed out that part which gives the account about Moses in the
bulrushes, and I've just been looking it over: it is easy enough, now,
to understand why I was called Moses."
"But Moses did not think it necessary to go and live in a desert, or
on an uninhabited island, merely because he was found in those
bulrushes."
_"That_ Moses had no occasion to be ashamed of his parents. It
was fear, not shame, that sent him adrift. Nor did Moses ever let a
set of lubberly Frenchmen seize a fine, stout ship, like the Crisis,
with a good, able-bodied crew of forty men on board her."
"Come, Marble, you have too much sense to talk in this manner. It is,
fortunately, not too late to change your mind; and I will let it be
understood that you did so at my persuasion."
This was the commencement of a final effort on my part to induce my
friend to abandon his mad project. We conversed quite an hour, until I
had exhausted my breath, as well as my arguments, indeed; and all
without the least success. I pointed out to him the miserable plight
he must be in, in the event of illness; but it was an argument that
had no effect on a man who had never had even a headach in his
life. As for society, he cared not a straw for it when ashore, he
often boasted; and he could not yet appreciate the effects of total
solitude.
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