ience
has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there
invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all
sides;--that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.'

(Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each
other.--Aye, Aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,--these
are but sorry fortifications, Trim.--O! very poor work, answered Trim,
to what your Honour and I make of it.--The character of this last man,
said Dr. Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest;
and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst
you:--Amongst us, a man's conscience could not possibly continue so long
blinded,--three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession.
Will that restore it to sight? quoth my uncle Toby,--Go on, Trim, quoth
my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou has got to the
end of thy sermon.--'Tis a very short one, replied Trim.--I wish it was
longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely.--Trim went on.)

'A fourth man shall want even this refuge;--shall break through all
their ceremony of slow chicane;--scorns the doubtful workings of
secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose:--See
the bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs,
murders!--Horrid!--But indeed much better was not to be expected, in
the present case--the poor man was in the dark!--his priest had got the
keeping of his conscience;--and all he would let him know of it, was,
That he must believe in the Pope;--go to Mass;--cross himself;--tell his
beads;--be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was enough
to carry him to heaven. What;--if he perjures?--Why;--he had a mental
reservation in it.--But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you
represent him;--if he robs,--if he stabs, will not conscience, on every
such act, receive a wound itself?--Aye,--but the man has carried it to
confession;--the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a
short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery! what hast thou to
answer for!--when not content with the too many natural and fatal ways,
thro' which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to itself
above all things;--thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of deceit
before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to go
astray of himself, and confidently speak peace to himself, when there is
no peace.

'Of th