r you, that will humble you and
fill you full of remorse and compunction. And if in God's grace to you,
that were to begin to be wrought in you this week, there would be one, at
any rate, eating of that bread next Lord's day, and drinking of that cup
as God would have it.

6. 'A man that is no tattler, nor raiser of false reports, and that
talks nothing of news, but by very solid arguments.' Mr. Prywell was
more taken up with his own matters at home, far more than the greatest
busybodies are with other men's matters abroad. His name, I fear, will
still sound somewhat ill in your ears, but I can assure you all the ill
for you lies in the sound. Mr. Prywell would not hurt a hair of your
head: the truth is, he does not know whether there is a hair on your head
or no. This man's name comes to him and sticks to him, not because he
pries into your affairs, for he does not, and never did, but because he
is so drawn down into his own. Mr. Prywell has no eye for your windows
and he has no ear for your doors. If your servant is a leaky slave,
Prywell, of all your neighbours, has no ear for his idle tales. This man
is no eavesdropper; your evil secrets have only a sobering and a
saddening and a silencing effect upon him. Your house might be full of
skeletons for anything he would ever discover or remember. The beam in
his own eye is so big that he cannot see past it to speak about your
small mote. 'The inward Christian,' says A Kempis, 'preferreth the care
of himself before all other cares. He that diligently attendeth to
himself can easily keep silence concerning other men. If thou attendest
unto God and unto thyself, thou wilt be but little moved with what thou
seest abroad.' At the same time, Mr. Prywell was no fool, and no coward,
and no hoodwinked witness. He could tell his tale, when it was demanded
of him, with such truth, and with such punctuality, and on such ample
grounds, that a conviction of the truth instantly fell on all who heard
him. 'Sirs,' said those who heard him break silence, 'it is not
irrational for us to believe it,' with such solid arguments and with such
an absence of mere suspicion and of all idle tales did he speak. On one
occasion, on a mere 'inkling,' he woke up the guard; only, it was so true
an inkling that it saved the city. But I cannot follow Mr. Prywell any
further to-night. How he went up and down Mansoul listening; how he kept
his eyes and his ears both shut and open; what s