ood faith, my
friend, you labour under some misconception. I am used to rely on myself
for all the saving that I need. And, generally speaking, if you except
the sea, and those cursed north-east winds, I know of no particular
danger.

CHRISTIAN. Oh, my friend, you totally mistake the matter. I mean saving
from sin.

ROMAN. Saving from a fault, that is--well, what sort of a fault? Or, how
should a man, that you say is no longer on earth, save me from any
fault? Is it a book to warn me of faults that He has left?

CHRISTIAN. Why, yes. Not that He wrote Himself; but He talked, and His
followers have recorded His views. But still you are quite in the dark.
Not faults, but the fountain of all faults, that is what He will save
you from.

ROMAN. But how? I can understand that by illuminating my judgment in
general He might succeed in making me more prudent.

CHRISTIAN. 'Judgment,' 'prudent'--these words show how wide by a whole
hemisphere you are of the truth. It is your will that He applies His
correction to.

ROMAN. 'Will!' why I've none but peaceable and lawful designs, I assure
you. Oh! I begin to see. You think me a partner with those pirates that
we just spoke to.

CHRISTIAN. Not at all, my friend. I speak not of designs or intentions.
What I mean is, the source of all desires--what I would call your wills,
your whole moral nature.

ROMAN (_bridling_). Ahem! I hope Roman nature is quite as little in need
of improvement as any other. There are the Cretans; they held up their
heads. Accordingly they had their fire institutions, and that true
institution against bribery and luxury, and all such stuff. They fancied
themselves impregnable. Why, bless you! even Marcus Tullius, that was a
prosing kind of man and rather peevish about such things, could not keep
in the truth. 'Why, Cato, my boy,' says he, 'you talk.' And to hear you,
bribery and luxury would not leave one a stick to fight for. Why, now,
these same Cretans--lord! we took the conceit out of them in
twenty-five minutes. No more time, I assure you, did it cost three of
our cohorts to settle the whole lot of them.

CHRISTIAN. My friend, you are more and more in the dark. What I mean is
not present in your senses, but a disease.

ROMAN. Oh, a disease! that's another thing. But where?

CHRISTIAN. Why, it affects the brain and the heart.

ROMAN. Well, now, one at a time. Take the brain--we have a disease, and
we treat it with white hellebore. There may be