g his pipe and
shaking it across me at the clergyman, "that science has done services
to your cloth which have not always received the most grateful
acknowledgments. Why, man," here he began to fill his pipe slowly,
"the theologian and the man of science, although they seem to diverge
and lose sight of each other, are all the while working to one end.
Two exploring parties in Australia set out from one point; the one goes
east, and the other west. They lose sight of each other, they know
nothing of one another's whereabouts; but they are all steering to one
point,"--the sharp spirt of a fusee on the garden-seat came in here,
followed by an aromatic flavour in the air,--"and when they do meet,
which they are certain to do in the long run,"--here the doctor put the
pipe in his mouth, and finished his speech with it there,--"the figure
of the continent has become known, and may be set down in maps. The
exploring parties have started long ago. What folly in the one to
pooh-pooh or be suspicious of the exertions of the other. That party
deserves the greatest credit which meets the other more than half
way."--"Bravo!" cried the clergyman, when the doctor had finished his
oration; "I don't know that I could fill your place at the bedside, but
I am quite sure that you could fill mine in the pulpit."--"I am not
sure that the congregation would approve of the change,--I might
disturb their slumbers;" and, pleased with his retort, his cheery laugh
rose through a cloud of smoke into the sunset.

Heigho! mine is a dull life, I fear, when this little affair of the
doctor and the clergyman takes the dignity of an incident, and seems
worthy of being recorded.

The doctor was anxious that, during the following winter, a short
course of lectures should be delivered in the village schoolroom, and
in my garden he held several conferences on the matter with the
clergyman and myself. It was arranged finally that the lectures should
be delivered, and that one of them should be delivered by me. I need
not say how pleasant was the writing out of my discourse, and how the
pleasure was heightened by the slightest thrill of alarm at my own
temerity. My lecture I copied out in my most careful hand, and, as I
had it by heart, I used to declaim passages of it ensconced in my
moss-house, or concealed behind my shrubbery trees. In these places I
tried it all over, sentence by sentence. The evening came at last
which had been looked forward