nnis, almost trembling; "but we would have the
better, if it pleased God." "Which of the two _do_ you want?" inquires
the Bishop pointedly. "Samson!" answered Dennis; "Samson!" echoed all
of the rest that durst speak or echo anything: and Samson is reported
to the King accordingly. His Majesty, advising of it for a moment,
orders that Samson be brought in with the other Twelve.

The King's Majesty, looking at us somewhat sternly, then says: "You
present to me Samson; I do not know him: had it been your Prior, whom
I do know, I should have accepted him: however, I will now do as you
wish. But have a care of yourselves. By the true eyes of God, _per
veros oculos Dei_, if you manage badly, I will be upon you!" Samson,
therefore, steps forward, kisses the King's feet; but swiftly rises
erect again, swiftly turns towards the altar, uplifting with the other
Twelve, in clear tenor-note, the Fifty-first Psalm, '_Miserere mei
Deus_,

'After thy loving-kindness, Lord,
Have mercy upon _me_;'

with firm voice, firm step and head, no change in his countenance
whatever. "By God's eyes," said the King, "that one, I think, will
govern the Abbey well." By the same oath (charged to your Majesty's
account), I too am precisely of that opinion! It is some while since I
fell in with a likelier man anywhere than this new Abbot Samson. Long
life to him, and may the Lord _have_ mercy on him as Abbot!

* * * * *

Thus, then, have the St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot-box
or other good winnowing-machine, contrived to accomplish the most
important social feat a body of men can do, to winnow-out the
man that is to govern them: and truly one sees not that, by any
winnowing-machine whatever, they could have done it better. O ye kind
Heavens, there is in every Nation and Community a _fittest_, a wisest,
bravest, best; whom could we find and make King over us, all were in
very truth well;--the best that God and Nature had permitted _us_ to
make it! By what art discover him? Will the Heavens in their pity
teach us no art; for our need of him is great!

Ballot-boxes, Reform Bills, winnowing-machines: all these are good, or
are not so good;--alas, brethren, how _can_ these, I say, be other
than inadequate, be other than failures, melancholy to behold? Dim all
souls of men to the divine, the high and awful meaning of Human Worth
and Truth, we shall never, by all the machinery in Birmingham,
discove