| 626 as good as could be asked; but as yet I have not been molested. I have neither seen nor heard of any Ku-Klux operations in southern Alabama or western Florida. There has been such an organization, but their object seems to have been fun, as much or more than any real love for blood or cruelty. The southern people are brave and impulsive, and no doubt while smarting under the sense of failure at secession, and loss of the slavery institution, their pride offended by the exaltation of their former slaves to a position of political equality, and in some cases political superiority; their love of home and its associations being challenged by invidious comparisons with more northernly institutions, manners, and habits, and by attempts of strangers to represent them in Congress, and in the State Legislature, I say no doubt while this condition of things exists, they are often led to deeds of violence in some parts. Knowing somewhat of the character of the people of the South,-their warm bloodedness and impulsiveness,-they manifest more forbearance and submission to law than I fear would be shown in many parts of the North if the people there were placed in precisely similar circumstances. If men trust to partisan accounts of opposing principles and associations, they very seldom will arrive at just conclusions. . . .
"As a religious body, we know by bitter experience the evil effects of persecution, and slander, and misrepresentation, and have seen how the prejudice, which results from these manifestations of a satanic spirit, vanishes when the truth is known. So it is in regard to southern and northern peculiarities.
"Since I wrote the last communication, I have been in a different country from the 'piney woods' of western Florida, and where the soil is different, and in this case I can say therefore, better. The lay of the land in Monroe and Butler counties is similar, as well as the character of the soil, to that of Pennsylvania, where my Dutch ancestors grew and thrived. Further north, the productiveness of the soil is clearly seen to be superior to that of these counties."-The Saints' Herald, vol. 18, pp. 525, 526.
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