temper; so the less said the better! They tell a story in Germany of one Peter Schlemihl, who lost his shadow! When a man's method becomes so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be without a shadow of a truth, I think of Peter Schlemihl!

THERE did you fall in with that French word! Poor defences for your ramparts, if these are all you can oppose! A Frenchman, from your manner of expressing yourself, would be apt to give it a different turn! Come, come! You must elevate your style, even though your theme be low and unworthy of anything better. But you should remember, when talking or writing upon the doctrines and morals of the Christian religion, they have had appropriated to them the finest style of our language, even by opponents. Elevate your language, then, away with slang phrases and mere play upon words, else you may force me to apply with more pungency than is consistent certain caustic definitions of a writer who wielded the quill last century !

"A juggler is a wit in things,

A wit is a juggler in ideas,

A punster is a juggler in words!"

It can do your cause no good, while it excites contempt in persons of understanding. You skeptics should respect your system, so far, at least, as to clothe it in decent language when advocating it. Rather difficult, I suppose; yet, it may be

worth an effort. A rogue succeeds better when well dressed! The higher classes of society are much taken with style. Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Bolingbroke, and others captivated with the brilliancy of their style.

The abruptness of my own style may be a fault, but my hearers perceive it is forced upon me by other and more pressing claims. Self-denial is required often in avoiding enlargement when a theme opens invitingly before me. A stern valuation of time and words may be a virtue, though at the expense of grace of style. This is an age of verbosity and prolixity, and it is well when circumstances sternly forbid both. But the faith of God's people, ay, and of sinners, is not to stand in "the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

I like the sentiment of Addison, that if we must lash one another, we should do it elegantly, even though it be with the manly strokes of wit and satire! I am also of the old philosopher's opinion, that, if I must suffer equally from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a lion than from the hoof of an ass!

However, some allowance should be made for your system. I remember a remark of Boileau, the French critic, that it is impossible for any thought to be beautiful which is not just, and has not its foundation in the nature of things, and that no thought can be valuable of which good sense is not the groundwork-a sentiment quite sufficient to dry the ink on every skeptic's pen. There is a natural way of writing, of which Addison speaks, that always carries with it a beautiful simplicity-a style which he admired in the ancients, and which renders their composition so charming in the present day. He thought no one deviates from their style or from the natural

way of writing but those who want strength of genius to make a thought shine in its own natural beauties.

This is about all I have to say. Your heart is far from being happy. How can it be? The end is to be yet more bitter. But I know a tree, the tree of life in the Gospel, a branch from which would sweeten the fountain of that heart of yours and the stream of its words! Truly it would, as did that branch which Heaven directed Moses to cast into those wells of bitter water, recorded in Exodus x., by which they immediately became sweet. But this privilege cannot be allowed me so long as you relish the fruit of that forbidden tree-skepticism.

True, infidelity is the same now as in their day, but these were superior minds! You may play on their fiddle, but you cannot make their music! Do you understand me? Have you never read the story of Gainsborough, who became so enamored of the music made upon a fiddle by the great violinist Giardino, that he was frantic until he purchased the instrument-like the servant girl in the Spectator, he thought the music lay in the fiddle!-which he purchased at a high figure, but was surprised and shocked when he found that the music of the instrument remained behind with Giardino, and all the scraping and screwing he could apply he could not coax out the music that had given him so much pleasure! Can you make the application? Those talented writers made infidelity attractive to you; they played well upon the instru ment; it was not their theme, but their talent, which made it so attractive for what is there in their system to charm any man of sense and virtue? You have paid a high price already for

their instrument, and more is yet to be paid. Gainsborough
did not mortgage his estate for the fiddle, but you have
pawned your soul for this. Alas! after all your scraping and
screwing, its music is not to be coaxed out!—it remains be-
hind with the learning and talent of the Giardinos! Let me
remind you, by the spur of a merry poet of the last century,
"And reasons good,

By better only are understood;
Sharpen your wits, then, or you'll meet
Contempt as certain as defeat!"