in question his pure and unsullied reputation. We would not ourselves
advert to it at all, but that we hope it may meet his eye, and prompt
him to take the earliest measures to contradict and refute it, as we are
certain he will and can do.'

"This was all exceedingly kind, and certainly so very charitable that
the Equivocal could not, with any claim to Christian principles, suffer
itself to be outdone in that blessed spirit of brotherly love and
forgiveness, which, it trusted, always characterized its pages.

"'We are delighted,' it said, 'at the mild and benevolent tone in which,
under the common misconception, a little anecdote, simple and harmless
in itself, was uttered. Indeed, we smiled--but we trust the smile
was that of a Christian--on hearing our respected and respectable
contemporary doling out the mistake of a child, with such an air
of solemn interest in the reputation of a gentleman whose name and
character are beyond the reach of either calumny or envy. The harmless
misconception on which, by a chance expression, the silly rumor was
founded, is known to all the friends of the gentleman in question. He
himself, however, being one of those deep-feeling Christians, who are
not insensible to the means which often resorted to, for wise purposes,
in order to try us and prove our faith, is far from looking on the
mistake--as, in the weakness of their own strength, many would as a
thing to be despised and contemned. No; he receives it as a warning,
it may be for him to be more preciously alive to his privileges, and to
take care when he stands lest he might fall. Altogether, therefore, he
receives this thing as an evidence that he is cared for, and that it is
his duty to look upon it as an awakening of his, perhaps, too worldly
and forgetful spirit, to higher and better duties; and if so, then will
it prove a blessing unto him, and will not have been given in vain. We
would not, therefore, be outdone even in charity by our good friend of
the _True Blue_; and we remember that when about six months ago, he was
said to have been found in a state scarcely compatible with sobriety,
in the channel of Castle Cumber main street, opposite the office door of
the Equivocal, on his way home from an Orange lodge, we not only aided
him, as was our duty, but we placed the circumstance in its proper
light--a mere giddiness in the head, accompanied by a total prostration
of physical strength, to both of which even the most tempera