these things are done every day. I sha'n't go to
set up for being better than my neighbors in these sort of things;
these little matters will pass muster--I don't set up for a
reformer--if I am as good as the rest of my neighbors, no man can
call me to account: I am not worse, I trust, and don't pretend to be
better.

_Worthy._ You must be tried hereafter at the bar of God, and not by
a jury of your fellow-creatures; and the Scriptures are given us, in
order to show by what rule we shall be judged. How many or how few
do as you do, is quite aside from the question; Jesus Christ has
even told us to strive to enter in at the _strait_ gate; so we ought
rather to take fright, from our being like the common run of people,
than to take comfort from our being so.

_Bragwell._ Come, I don't like all this close work--it makes a man
feel I don't know how--I don't find myself so happy as I did--I
don't like this fishing in troubled waters; I'm as merry as the day
is long when I let these things alone. I'm glad we are got to the
ninth. But I suppose I shall be lugged in there too, head and
shoulders. Any one now who did not know me, would really think I was
a great sinner, by your way of putting things; I don't bear false
witness, however.

_Worthy._ You mean, I suppose, you would not swear away any man's
life falsely before a magistrate, but do you take equal care not to
slander or backbite him? Do you never represent a good action of a
man you have quarreled with, as if it were a bad one? or do you
never make a bad one worse than it is, by your manner of telling it?
Even when you invent no false circumstances, do you never give such
a color to those you relate, as to leave a false impression on the
mind of the hearers? Do you never twist a story so as to make it
tell a little better for yourself, and a little worse for your
neighbor, than truth and justice warrant?

_Bragwell._ Why, as to that matter, all this is only natural.

_Worthy._ Ay, much too natural to be right, I doubt. Well, now we
have got to the last of the commandments.

_Bragwell._ Yes, I have run the gauntlet finely through them all;
you will bring me in guilty here, I suppose, for the pleasure of
going through with it; for you condemn without judge or jury, Master
Worthy.

_Worthy._ The culprit, I think, has hitherto pleaded guilty to the
evidence brought against him. The tenth commandment, however, goes
to the root and principle of evil, it dives to t