In all the relations of life, A.B.  Roman was a model—­gentle and affable in his manners, punctiliously honorable, faithful in all his transactions, affectionate and indulgent as a husband and father, kind and obliging as a neighbor, faithful to all the duties of a citizen; and ambitious to promote the best interests of his native State, he gave his time and talents for this purpose, wherever and whenever they could be of service.  The war, in his old age, left him destitute and heart-broken.  I had the opportunity of several conversations with him, and found him despondent in the extreme.  Our last interview was the week before his death.

“In my old age,” he said, “I am compelled, for a decent support, to accept a petty office—­recorder of mortgages—­and I feel humiliated.  I see no future for me or my people.  My days are wellnigh over, and I can’t say I regret it.”

Only five days after, he fell dead in the street, near his own door.  A wise and good man went to his God when A.B.  Roman died.  He was one of a large and respectable family, long resident in the State, and surely was one of her noblest sons.

CHAPTER XXXI.

BLOWING UP THE LIONESS.

DOCTOR CLAPP—­VIEWS AND OPINIONS—­UNIVERSAL DESTINY—­ALEXANDER BARROW —­E.D.  WHITE—­CROSS-BREED, IRISH RENEGADE AND ACADIAN—­HEROIC WOMAN—­ THE GINSENG TRADE—­I-I-I’LL D-D-DIE F-F-FIRST.

Dr. Clapp, so conspicuous in the annals of New Orleans, was from New England, and was located in New Orleans as a Presbyterian minister, as early as 1824, and about the same period that the great and lamented Larned died.

His mind was bold and original, analytical and independent.  Soon after his location and the commencement of his ministry, he gave offence to some of his church, and especially to some of his brother pastors, by the enunciation of opinions not deemed orthodox.

There was at this time preaching at Natchez, one Potts, who was a Presbyterian, a Puritan, and extremely straight-laced in doctrine, and eminently puritan in practice, intolerant, bigoted, and presumptuous.  Potts had accomplished one great aim of his mission:  he had married a lady of fortune, and assumed more purity than any one else, and was a sort of self-constituted exponent of the only true doctrines of his church.  Arrogant and conceited, he, though a very young man, thrust himself forward as a censor, and very soon was in controversy with Dr. Clapp.  Without a tithe of his talent, or a grain of his piety, he assumed to arraign him on the ground of unfaithfulness to the tenets of the church.  This controversy was bitter and continued.  The result was, that Dr. Clapp dissolved connection with the Presbyterian Church, and, at the call of the most numerous and talented as well as wealthy congregation ever preached to, up to that time, in New Orleans; established himself as an independent, and continued to preach for many years—­indeed, until age and infirmity compelled him to retire.