n by itself to any good purpose. You must have comparative
theology as you have comparative anatomy. What would you make of a cat's
foolish little good-for-nothing collar-bone, if you did not know how the
same bone means a good deal in other creatures,--in yourself, for
instance, as you 'll find out if you break it? You can't know too much
of your race and its beliefs, if you want to know anything about your
Maker. I never found but one sect large enough to hold the whole of me.

--And may I ask what that was?--I said.

--The Human sect,--the Master answered. That has about room enough for
me,--at present, I mean to say.

--Including cannibals and all?--said I.

-Oh, as to that, the eating of one's kind is a matter of taste, but the
roasting of them has been rather more a specialty of our own particular
belief than of any other I am acquainted with. If you broil a saint, I
don't see why, if you have a mind, you shouldn't serve him up at your--

Pop! went the little piece of artillery. Don't tell me it was accident.
I know better. You can't suppose for one minute that a boy like that one
would time his interruptions so cleverly. Now it so happened that at
that particular moment Dr. B. Franklin was not at the table. You may
draw your own conclusions. I say nothing, but I think a good deal.

--I came back to the Bunker Hill Monument.---I often think--I said--of
the dynasty which is to reign in its shadow for some thousands of years,
it may be.

The "Man of Letters," so called, asked me, in a tone I did not exactly
like, whether I expected to live long enough to see a monarchy take the
place of a republic in this country.

--No,--said I,--I was thinking of something very different. I was
indulging a fancy of mine about the Man who is to sit at the foot of the
monument for one, or it may be two or three thousand years. As long as
the monument stands and there is a city near it, there will always be a
man to take the names of visitors and extract some small tribute from
their pockets, I suppose. I sometimes get thinking of the long, unbroken
succession of these men, until they come to look like one Man; continuous
in being, unchanging as the stone he watches, looking upon the successive
generations of human beings as they come and go, and outliving all the
dynasties of the world in all probability. It has come to such a pass
that I never speak to the Man of the Monument without wanting to take my
hat off