all nature can bear! Good God! see how it keeps his
weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips!' (I would not read another
line of it, quoth Trim for all this world;--I fear, an' please your
Honours, all this is in Portugal, where my poor brother Tom is. I
tell thee, Trim, again, quoth my father, 'tis not an historical
account,--'tis a description.--'Tis only a description, honest man,
quoth Slop, there's not a word of truth in it.--That's another
story, replied my father.--However, as Trim reads it with so much
concern,--'tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.--Give me hold of
the sermon, Trim,--I'll finish it for thee, and thou may'st go. I must
stay and hear it too, replied Trim, if your Honour will allow me;--tho'
I would not read it myself for a Colonel's pay.--Poor Trim! quoth my
uncle Toby. My father went on.)

'--Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies
stretched,--what exquisite torture he endures by it!--'Tis all nature
can bear! Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon
his trembling lips,--willing to take its leave,--but not suffered to
depart!--Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!'--(Then, thank
God, however, quoth Trim, they have not killed him.)--'See him dragged
out of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last agonies,
which this principle,--this principle, that there can be religion
without mercy, has prepared for him.'--(Then, thank God,--he is dead,
quoth Trim,--he is out of his pain,--and they have done their worst at
him.--O Sirs!--Hold your peace, Trim, said my father, going on with the
sermon, lest Trim should incense Dr. Slop,--we shall never have done at
this rate.)

'The surest way to try the merit of any disputed notion is, to trace
down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with
the spirit of Christianity;--'tis the short and decisive rule which our
Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth a
thousand arguments--By their fruits ye shall know them.

'I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or
three short and independent rules deducible from it.

'First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect
that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the
better of his Creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and
troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'tis
for no other cause but quietness sake.

'S