ng forth.
Accident, for example, having once brought him to hear a sermon on
eternal punishment, by the Reverend Jaquemin Herode--a magnificent
discourse, filled from one end to the other with sacred texts, proving
the everlasting pains, the tortures, the torments, the perditions, the
inexorable chastisements, the burnings without end, the inextinguishable
maledictions, the wrath of the Almighty, the celestial fury, the divine
vengeance, and other incontestable realities--he was heard to say as he
was going out in the midst of the faithful flock, "You see, I have an
odd notion of my own on this matter; I imagine God as a merciful being."

This leaven of atheism was doubtless due to his sojourn in France.

Although a Guernsey man of pure extraction, he was called in the island
"the Frenchman;" but chiefly on account of his "improper" manner of
speaking. He did not indeed conceal the truth from himself. He was
impregnated with ideas subversive of established institutions. His
obstinacy in constructing the "Devil Boat" had proved that. He used to
say, "I was suckled by the '89"--a bad sort of nurse. These were not his
only indiscretions. In France "to preserve appearances," in England "to
be respectable," is the chief condition of a quiet life. To be
respectable implies a multitude of little observances, from the strict
keeping of Sunday down to the careful tying of a cravat. "To act so that
nobody may point at you;" this is the terrible social law. To be pointed
at with the finger is almost the same thing as an anathematisation.
Little towns, always hotbeds of gossip, are remarkable for that
isolating malignancy, which is like the tremendous malediction of the
Church seen through the wrong end of the telescope. The bravest are
afraid of this ordeal. They are ready to confront the storm, the fire of
cannon, but they shrink at the glance of "Mrs. Grundy." Mess Lethierry
was more obstinate than logical; but under pressure even his obstinacy
would bend. He put--to use another of his phrases, eminently suggestive
of latent compromises, not always pleasant to avow--"a little water in
his wine." He kept aloof from the clergy, but he did not absolutely
close his door against them. On official occasions, and at the customary
epochs of pastoral visits, he received with sufficiently good grace both
the Lutheran rector and the Papist chaplain. He had even, though at
distant intervals, accompanied Deruchette to the Anglican parish chu