worse
still, carrying away others to a similar doom, in that they read, and
perhaps even purchase, that which the lost one has written? In this
way the contents of religious newspapers are apt to be personal;
and heavy, biting, scorching attacks, become the natural vehicle of
_Christian Examiners_.

Mr Maguire sat down and wrote his leading article, which on the
following Saturday appeared in all the glory of large type. The
article shall not be repeated here at length, because it contained
sundry quotations from Holy Writ which may as well be omitted,
but the purport of it shall be explained. It commenced with a
dissertation against an undue love of wealth,--the _auri sacra
fames_, as the writer called it; and described with powerful unction
the terrible straits into which, when indulged, it led the vile,
wicked, ugly, hideous, loathsome, devilish human heart. Then there
was an eloquent passage referring to worms and dust and grass, and
a quotation respecting treasures both corruptible and incorruptible.
Not at once, but with crafty gradations, the author sloped away to
the point of his subject. How fearful was it to watch the way in
which the strong, wicked ones,--the roaring lions of the earth,
beguiled the ignorance of the innocent, and led lonely lambs into
their slaughter-houses. All this, much amplified, made up half
the article; and then, after the manner of a pleasant relater of
anecdotes, the clerical story-teller began his little tale. When,
however, he came to the absolute writing of the tale, he found it
to be prudent for the present to omit the names of his hero and
heroine--to omit, indeed, the names of all the persons concerned. He
had first intended boldly to dare it all, and perhaps would yet have
done so had he been quite sure of his editor. But his editor he found
might object to these direct personalities at the first sound of the
trumpet, unless the communication were made in the guise of a letter,
with Mr Maguire's name at the end of it. After a while the editor
might become hot in the fight himself, and then the names could
be blazoned forth. And there existed some chance,--some small
chance,--that the robber-lion, John Ball, might be induced to drop
his lamb from his mouth when he heard this premonitory blast, and
then the lion's prey might be picked up by--"the bold hunter," Mr
Maguire would probably have said, had he been called upon to finish
the sentence himself; anyone else might, perhaps