he posthumous dying epigram for him. The incoherent babble of green
fields is translated into the language of stately sentiment. One would
think, all that dying men had to do was to say the prettiest thing they
could,--to make their rhetorical point,--and then bow themselves
politely out of the world.

Worse than this is the torturing of dying people to get their evidence in
favor of this or that favorite belief. The camp-followers of proselyting
sects have come in at the close of every life where they could get in, to
strip the languishing soul of its thoughts, and carry them off as spoils.
The Roman Catholic or other priest who insists on the reception of his
formula means kindly, we trust, and very commonly succeeds in getting the
acquiescence of the subject of his spiritual surgery, but do not let us
take the testimony of people who are in the worst condition to form
opinions as evidence of the truth or falsehood of that which they accept.
A lame man's opinion of dancing is not good for much. A poor fellow who
can neither eat nor drink, who is sleepless and full of pains, whose
flesh has wasted from him, whose blood is like water, who is gasping for
breath, is not in a condition to judge fairly of human life, which in all
its main adjustments is intended for men in a normal, healthy condition.
It is a remark I have heard from the wise Patriarch of the Medical
Profession among us, that the moral condition of patients with disease
above the great breathing-muscle, the diaphragm, is much more hopeful
than that of patients with disease below it, in the digestive organs.
Many an honest ignorant man has given us pathology when he thought he was
giving us psychology. With this preliminary caution I shall proceed to
the story of the Little Gentleman's leaving us.

When the divinity-student found that our fellow-boarder was not likely to
remain long with us, he, being a young man of tender conscience and
kindly nature, was not a little exercised on his behalf. It was
undeniable that on several occasions the Little Gentleman had expressed
himself with a good deal of freedom on a class of subjects which,
according to the divinity-student, he had no right to form an opinion
upon. He therefore considered his future welfare in jeopardy.

The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of dealing with people. If I,
the Professor, will only give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there
shall be no question through all that persuasi