d how
his worst enemy were caught in his own trap. He were just winding a
cord round his own legs when he thought he'd got William's feet fast in
the snare. Now, boys and girls, when you're tempted to break the
pledge, just think of this jar of tar, and offer up a prayer to be kept
firm. 'Twouldn't be a bad thing--specially if you're much in the way of
temptation--just to get a jar like this of your own, and hang it up in
the wash-house, and put some good fresh tar in it, and, just before you
go to your work of a morning, take a good long sniff at the tar--it's a
fine healthy smell is tar--and maybe it'll be a help to you the whole
day. There, I've done."

And he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, amid the hearty cheers and
laughter of his hearers.

The vicar then introduced Dr Prosser, remarking that he was sure that
those who had heard him lecture last April would be delighted to listen
to his voice again. The doctor, who was vociferously cheered, stood
forward and said:--

"I have the greatest pleasure in being with you, dear friends, to-day.
I have heard a great deal of what has been going on from your excellent
vicar, and have now listened with the deepest interest to the
characteristic speeches which have just been made. I shall be glad now
to say a few words, and to add my testimony to the importance of certain
truths which need enforcing in our day. Thomas Bradly is to follow me,
and I feel sure that his homely eloquence and plain practical good sense
will be a fit termination to this most truly interesting meeting.

"What I would now urge upon you all is this,--the unspeakable importance
in these days of grasping realities instead of hunting shadows. I have
been, I fear, till lately, more or less of a shadow-hunter myself. I
used to sympathise with the cry,--

"`For names and creeds let senseless bigots fight--
He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

"But I don't think this now. We men of science are too apt to deal with
abstractions, and to follow out favourite theories, till we are in
danger of forgetting that we have hearts and souls as well as heads;
that, as has been beautifully said, `The heart has its arguments as well
as the understanding;' and that, as God's Word tells us, `The things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are
eternal.' I am more and more strongly persuaded of this every day. We
are living in times of immense energy and surprisi