d generation that ye are, ye stay from the
banquet and then complain of hunger! "Shall there be no punishment for
this obduracy?" asks kindly Mother Church, her eyes red with weeping for
the hard-heartedness of her children. "Shall there be no remedy?" she
sobs, wringing her hands. Whereupon, the spotless maiden Law--that
Amazonian virgin, eldest child of violated Justice--answers, "_Fifteen
Shillings!_"

We are indebted to Lord BROUGHAM for this new instance of the stubbornness
of the poor--for this new revelation of the pious vengeance of offended
law. A few nights since his lordship, in a motion touching prison
discipline, stated that "a man had been confined for _ten weeks_, having
been fined a shilling, and _fourteen shillings costs_, which he did not
pay, because he was absent one Sunday from church!"

Who can doubt, that from the moment _John Jones_--(the reader may christen
the offender as he pleases)--was discharged, he became a most pious,
church-going Christian? He had been ten Sundays in prison, be it
remembered; and had therefore heard at least ten sermons. He crossed the
prison threshold a new-made man; and wending towards his happy home, had
in his face--so lately smirched with shameless vice--such lustrous glory,
that even his dearest creditors failed to recognise him!

Beautiful is the village church of Phariseefield! Beautiful is its
antiquity--beautiful its porch, thronged with white-headed men and ruddy
little ones! Beautiful the graves, sown with immortal seed, clustering
round the building! Beautiful the vicar's horses--the vicar himself
preaches to-day,--and very beautiful indeed, the faces, ay, and the
bonnets, too, of the vicar's daughters! Beautiful the sound of the bell
that summons the lowly Christian to cast aside the pomps and vanities of
the world, and to stand for a time in utter nakedness of heart before his
Maker,--and very beautiful the silk stockings of the Dowager Lady Canaan's
footman, who carrieth with Sabbath humility his Lady's books to Church!
Yet all this beauty is as deformity to the new-born loveliness of _John
Jones_; who, on the furthermost seat--far from the vain convenience of pew
and velvet hassock--sits, and inwardly blesses the one shilling and
fourteen shillings costs, that with more than fifteen-horse power have
drawn him from the iniquities of the Jerry-shop and hustle-farthing,--to
feed upon the manna dropping from the lips of the Reverend Doctor FAT!
There sits