ced
a _pen_ in the fingers of the man's hand which disturbed Belshazzar's
feast, and gave us many similar additions to holy writ. Yet he was
singularly devoid of imagination. He took everything in the Bible
literally, even the story of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the
apostles in the shape of cloven tongues of fire. "They were like this,"
he said, making an angle with the knuckles of his forefinger on the top
of his bald head, and looking at us with a pathetic air of sincerity. It
was the most ludicrous spectacle I ever witnessed.

During the few visits he paid me, Parson Plaford was fairly civil.
Mr. Ramsey seems to have been the subject of his impertinence. My
fellow-prisoner was informed that we deserved transportation for life.
Yet at that time the chaplain had not even _seen_ the publication
for which we were imprisoned! However, his son had, and he was "a
trustworthy young man." Towards the end of his term Mr. Ramsey found
the charitable heart of the man of God relent so far as to allow that
transportation for life was rather too heavy a punishment for our
offence, which only deserved perpetual detention in a lunatic asylum.

For the last ten months of my term Parson Plaford neither honoured nor
dishonored my cell with his presence. Soon after I was domiciled in
the A wing he called to see me. I rose from my stool and made him
a satirical bow. This greeting, however, was too freezing for his
effusiveness. Notwithstanding the opinion of us he had expressed to Mr.
Ramsey, and with which I was of course unacquainted, he extended his
hand as though he had known me for years.

"Ah," he said, "this is a sorry sight. Your trouble is mental I know. I
wish I could help you, but I cannot. You are here for breaking the law,
you know." "Yes," I replied, "such as it is. But the law is broken every
week. Millions of people abstain from attending church on Sunday, yet
there is an unrepealed law which commands them to."

"Yes, and I'd make them," was the fiery answer from the little man, as
the bigot flamed in his eyes.

"Come now," I said, "you couldn't if you tried."

"Well," he said, "you've got to suffer. But even if you are a martyr,
you don't suffer what _our_ martyrs did."

"Perhaps not," I retorted, "but I suffer all your creed is able
to inflict. Doesn't it occur to you as strange and monstrous that
Christianity, which boasts so of its own martyrs, should in turn
persecute all who differ from it? Suppose Fr