212 THE VIRGINIAN OPOSSUM. 



cut his flesh, and half skin him — not a muscle will he 

 move : his eyes are glazed and covered with dust, for 

 he has no eyelids to close over them. You may even 

 worry him with a dog, and satisf}^ yourself that he is 

 really defunct ; then leave him quiet a moment, and he 

 will draw^ a thin film from his eyes, and, if not inter- 

 fered w4th, be among the missing. 



A favourite simile with many of the uneducated 

 backwoods preachers is the tenacity with which the 

 opossum can suspend himself by his tail. We once 

 heard a preacher enforce the necessity of perseverance 

 and good works, by comparing a true Christian to a 

 'possum up a tall sapling, in a strong wind. Said he : 

 ' My brethren, that's your situation exactly. The world, 

 the flesh, and the devil compose the wind, that is try- 

 ing to blow you off the G-ospel tree. But don't let go 

 of it ; hold on as a 'possum w^ould in a hurricane. 

 If the fore-legs of your passions get loose, hold on by 

 your hind-legs of conscientiousness ; and if they let go, 

 hold on eternally by your tail, which is the promise 

 that the saints shall persevere unto the end.' 



I was once on a visit to a planter who loved hunting 

 passionately. He had killed hundreds of buffaloes on 

 the western plains, bears in the Mississippi bottoms, and 

 panthers in the cane-brakes of Texas and Arkansas. 

 Nothing was too big for him, nothing too small. On 

 one occasion I happened to speak slightingly of 'pos- 

 sum-hunting. 



