imer and Rowland Hill; are they prepared to
condemn them and many more like them? Nay (though it is a question which
can only be hinted at here), does not the Bible itself sanction the
combination by its own example? Is there not humour mixed with the
tremendous sarcasm of the old prophets--dread humour no doubt, but
humour unmistakably--wherever they speak of the helplessness of idols,
as in the forty-fourth and forty-sixth chapters of Isaiah, and in
Elijah's mockery of the priests of Baal:--"Cry aloud, for he is a God;
either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or
peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened." Is not the book of
Proverbs full of grave, dry, pungent humour? Consider only the following
passage out of many of the same spirit: "As the door turneth upon his
hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand
in his bosom, it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. The
sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a
reason. He that passeth by and meddleth with strife belonging not to
him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears."--Prov. xxvi. 14-17.

Or if it be objected that these things belong to an earlier covenant,
that laughter and jesting are "not convenient" under the Gospel of Him
who came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it, there is, perhaps, an
answer to this also.

For a specimen of subdued humour in narrative, adhering in the most
literal manner to facts, and yet contriving to bring them out by that
graphic literalness under their most ludicrous aspect, what can equal
St. Luke's description of the riot at Ephesus? The picture of the narrow
trade selfishness of Demetrius--of polytheism reduced into a matter of
business--of the inanity of a mob tumult in an enslaved country--of the
mixed coaxing and bullying of its officials, was surely never brought
out with a more latter vice, indeed, includes both the others, or
rather uses them as its instruments. Thus, the "pious Editor" proclaims,
as his creed,--

I du believe in Freedom's cause
Ez fur away ez Paris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Pharisees;

It's wal enough agin a king
To dror resolves and triggers,
But libbaty's a kind o' thing
Thet don't agree with niggers.

No doubt they go further than this. I am quite aware that Mr. Lowell
will be claimed as a champion by the peace party in this country; an