rogance to hide itself behind the bulwarks of tradition and sophistry.
Although Walter had studied his political creed under the most conservative teachings, his religious convictions had not parted with that Cardinal point which is the unquestioned heritage of the Protestant faith, the right of private judgment. It would have given him no pleasure, and it would have been no inducement to travel anywhere under a restriction of any opinion he might hold on any subject that came under his observation.
On reaching Washington, meeting an old acquaintance who was going directly to Mount Vernon, he accompanied him. He visited the tomb of the great Patriot and Defender of his country, and rambled over the grounds so often pressed by his weary feet. Descending a slope that led to the spring in a sequestered, but most enchanting and romantic spot, he sat down to rest and feast his soul upon a beauty of natural scenery that, aside from the interest it inspired by its association with the illustrious dead, was well calculated to lead the thoughts from the narrow range of the present over the boundless fields of the past, and the ungathered harvests yet to be garnered in the golden sheaves of the future. He dwelt upon the long list of British aggressions that had fired the indignant souls of Adams and Otis, until the flames of war kindled the whole Atlantic seaboard, when, by the united voices of those sitting at the helm, the rising ship of state was entrusted through its varying fortunes to the skill and wisdom of a young man whose successful career had laid the
