says that Mary Magdalene went to
Heaven by water, and it is certain that the tears that people shed for
themselves are apt to be sincere; but I doubt whether we are to be saved
by any amount of vicarious salt water, and, though the philosophers
should weep us into another Noah's flood, yet commonly men have lumber
enough of self-conceit to build a raft of, and can subsist a good while
on that beautiful charity for their own weaknesses in which the nerves
of conscience are embedded and cushioned, as in similar physical straits
they can upon their fat.

[Footnote 1: Countless--_i.e._, perpetual--smile.]

On the other hand, man has a wholesome dread of laughter, as he is the
only animal capable of that phenomenon--for the laugh of the hyena is
pronounced by those who have heard it to be no joke, and to be classed
with those [Greek: gelasmata agelasta] which are said to come from the
other side of the mouth. Whether, as Shaftesbury will have it, ridicule
be absolutely the test of truth or no, we may admit it to be relatively
so, inasmuch as by the _reductio ad absurdum_ it often shows that
abstract truth may become falsehood, if applied to the practical affairs
of life, because its relation to other truths equally important, or to
human nature, has been overlooked. For men approach truth from the
circumference, and, acquiring a knowledge at most of one or two points
of that circle of which God is the centre, are apt to assume that the
fixed point from which it is described is that where they stand.
Moreover, "Ridentem dicere verum, quid vetat?"

I side rather with your merry fellow than with Dr. Young when he says:

Laughter, though never censured yet as sin,
* * * * *
Is half immoral, be it much indulged;
By venting spleen, or dissipating thought,
It shows a scorner, or it makes a fool;
And sins, as hurting others or ourselves.
* * * * *
Yet would'st thou laugh (but at thine own expense),
This counsel strange should I presume to give--
"Retire, and read thy Bible, to be gay."

With shame I confess it, Dr. Young's "Night Thoughts" have given me as
many hearty laughs as any humorous book I ever read.

Men of one idea,--that is, who have one idea at a time,--men who
accomplish great results, men of action, reformers, saints, martyrs, are
inevitably destitute of humor; and if the idea that inspires them be
great and noble, they are imperviou