gain: neither doth GOD respect any
person: yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from
Him."

The sermon wasn't any easier than the text, and half the _s_'s were like
_f_'s which made it rather hard to preach, and there was Latin mixed up
with it, which I had to skip. I had preached two pages when I got into
the middle of a long sentence, of which part was this: "Every trifling
accident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm so
wrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow
like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first make
the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us."

I knew the meaning of the words "wrinkles," and "old age." Godfather
Gilpin's forehead had unusually deep furrows, and, almost against my
will, I turned so quickly to look if his wrinkles were at all like the
graves in the churchyard, that Taylor's _Sermons_, in its heavy binding,
slipped from the pulpit and fell to the ground.

And Godfather Gilpin woke up, and (quite forgetting that he was really
the old gentleman in the pew with the knocker) said, "Dear me, dear me!
is that Jeremy Taylor that you are knocking about like a football? My
dear child, I can't lend you my books to play with if you drop them on
to the floor."

I took it up in my arms and carried it sorrowfully to Godfather Gilpin.
He was very kind, and said it was not hurt, and I might go on playing
with the others; but I could see him stroking its brown leather and gold
back, as if it had been bruised and wanted comforting, and I was far too
sorry about it to go on preaching, even if I had had anything to preach.

I picked up the smallest book I could see in the congregation, and sat
down and pretended to read. There were pictures in it, but I turned over
a great many, one after the other, before I could see any of them, my
eyes were so full of tears of mortification and regret. The first
picture I saw when my tears had dried up enough to let me see was a very
curious one indeed. It was a picture of two men carrying what looked
like another man covered with a blue quilt, on a sort of bier. But the
funny part about it was the dress of the men. They were wrapped up in
black cloaks, and had masks over their faces, and underneath the picture
was written, "_Fratelli della Misericordia_"--"Brothers of Pity."

I do not know whether the accident to Jeremy Taylor had made Godfather
Gilpin too a