Yes, he left them, and came to us.  I received him into the Church in due form, and with no little eclat, he being the only son of Ham on our roll of members in San Francisco.  He stood firm to his Southern Methodist colors under a great pressure.

“Yer ought ter be killed fer goin’ ter dat Southern Church,” said one of his colored acquaintances one day, as they met in the street.

“Kill me, den,” said Uncle Nolan, with proud humility; “kill me, den; yer can’t cheat me out ob many days, nohow.”

He made a living, and something over, by rag-picking at North Beach and elsewhere, until the Chinese entered into competition with him, and then it was hard times for Uncle Nolan.  His eyesight partially failed him, and it was pitiful to see him on the beach, his threadbare garments fluttering in the wind, groping amid the rubbish for rags, or shuffling along the streets with a huge sack on his back, and his old felt hat tied under his nose with a string, picking his way carefully to spare his swollen feet, which were tied up with bagging and woolens.  His religious fervor never cooled; I never heard him complain.  He never ceased to be joyously thankful for two things—­his freedom and his religion.  But, strange as it may seem, he was a pro-slavery man to the last.  Even after the war, he stood to his opinion.

“Dem niggers in de South thinks dey is free, but dey ain’t.  ’Fore it’s all ober, all dat ain’t dead will be glad to git back to deir masters,” he would say.

Yet he was very proud of his own freedom, and took the utmost care of his free-papers.  He had no desire to resume his former relation to the peculiar and patriarchal institution.  He was not the first philosopher who has had one theory for his fellows, and another for himself.

Uncle Nolan would talk of religion by the hour.  He never tired of that theme.  His faith was simple and strong, but, like most of his race, he had a tinge of superstition.  He was a dreamer of dreams, and he believed in them.  Here is one which he recited to me.  His weird manner, and low, chanting tone, I must leave to the imagination of the reader: 

Uncle Nolan’s Dream.

A tall black man came along, an’ took me by de arm, an’ tole me he had come for me.  I said: 

“What yer want wid me?”

“I come to carry yer down into de darkness.”

“What for?”

“Cause you didn’t follow de Lord.”

Wid dat, he pulled me ’long de street till he come to a big black house, de biggest house an’ de thickest walls I eber seed.  We went in a little do’, an’ den he took me down a long sta’rs in de dark, till we come to a big do’; we went inside, an’ den de big black man locked de do’ behin’ us.  An’ so we kep’ on, goin’ down, an’ goin’ down, an’ goin’ down, an’ he kep’ lockin’ dem big iron do’s behin’ us, an’ all de time it was pitch dark, so I couldn’t see him, but he still hel’ on ter me.  At