mony; little or no introduction is required;
every one is at once on a most delightful footing of familiarity
with all the world; and the greatest possible incongruities appear
just comme il faut.

He told me that he had come from a very curious part of the "best of
all possible worlds,"--the "Paradise of Fools"; and on my looking
surprised, said,--

"Are you ignorant, then, that there is a spot in the universe where
a vicegerent of the Deity has at his disposal unlimited power and
wisdom to enable him to comply with the somewhat whimsical conditions
of the theories of those wonderful philosophers who have taken upon
them to say how the universe might have been constructed without any
supreme or presiding intelligence at all; or have modestly suggested,
that, had they been consulted, certain notable improvements might
have been effected in its fabrication or government; or, lastly, who
have complained of the revelation which God has vouchsafed to man,
or contended, that, if true, it might have been more unexceptionably
framed, and more skilfully promulgated?"

"And what is the result?" I asked.

"The result is a part of 'the everlasting shame and contempt' which
are the heritage of impiety."

"There must have been enough for the said vicegerent to do," I remarked.

"Not so much as you imagine," said he, smiling. "The conditions of their
theories, so far as even omniscience can comprehend or omnipotence
realize them, are indeed exactly complied with; but nevertheless, they
often baffle both. Sometimes the reproof, thus implied, obliquely
strikes more than its immediate objects; it alights even on some of the
profoundest philosophers, who never had it in their thoughts to call
in question the infinite superiority of Divine Power and Wisdom, but
who have delivered themselves a little too positively about 'monads'
and 'atoms,' and ultimate constituents of the universe. They have
sometimes been not a little scandalized, as well as laughed at, when
some half-witted, muddle-headed followers, glad to escape their trial,
pretended to have founded systems of Pantheism, or what is just the same
thing, Atheism, on some of their too obscure definitions. One man
declared that he could do nothing without the Monads of Leibnitz, each
of which, says that philosopher, 'is a mirror representing the universe,
though obscurely, and knows every thing, but confusedly,' which last
clause is unexceptionable enough. Another rogue asked fo