of. I remember a female Quaker who committed suicide by
cutting her throat, but she did it decorously and decently: kneeling down
over a pail, so that not one drop fell upon the floor; thus exhibiting in
her last act that nice sense of neatness for which Quakers are
distinguished. I have always had a respect for that woman's memory." And
here, filling his pipe from the canister, and lighting it at the taper,
he recommenced smoking calmly and sedately.

"But is not suicide forbidden in the Bible?" the youth demanded.

"Why, no; but what though it were!--the Bible is a respectable book, but
I should hardly call it one whose philosophy is of the soundest. I have
said that it is a respectable book; I mean respectable from its
antiquity, and from containing, as Herder says, 'the earliest records of
the human race,' though those records are far from being dispassionately
written, on which account they are of less value than they otherwise
might have been. There is too much passion in the Bible, too much
violence; now, to come to all truth, especially historic truth, requires
cool dispassionate investigation, for which the Jews do not appear to
have ever been famous. We are ourselves not famous for it, for we are a
passionate people; the Germans are not--they are not a passionate
people--a people celebrated for their oaths; we are. The Germans have
many excellent historic writers, we . . . 'tis true we have Gibbon . . .
You have been reading Gibbon--what do you think of him?"

"I think him a very wonderful writer."

"He is a wonderful writer--one _sui generis_--uniting the perspicuity of
the English--for we are perspicuous--with the cool dispassionate
reasoning of the Germans. Gibbon sought after the truth, found it, and
made it clear."

"Then you think Gibbon a truthful writer?"

"Why, yes; who shall convict Gibbon of falsehood? Many people have
endeavoured to convict Gibbon of falsehood; they have followed him in his
researches, and have never found him once tripping. Oh, he is a
wonderful writer! his power of condensation is admirable; the lore of the
whole world is to be found in his pages. Sometimes in a single note, he
has given us the result of the study of years; or, to speak
metaphorically, 'he has ransacked a thousand Gulistans, and has condensed
all his fragrant booty into a single drop of otto.'"

"But was not Gibbon an enemy to the Christian faith?"

"Why, no; he was rather an enemy to priestcra