of whom, only a
few days since, I heard one of the leading doctors explain to a pleased
audience that serpents once had legs, and had dropped them off in the
process of development, may have advised the modern disciple of progress
of a new meaning in the simple phrase, "upon thy belly shalt thou go";
and that the wisdom of the serpent may henceforth consist, for true
believers of the scientific Gospel, in the providing of meats for that
spiritual organ of motion. It is doubtless also true that we shall look
vainly among the sayings of Solomon for any expression of the opinions
of Mr. John Stuart Mill; but at least this much of Natural science,
enough for our highest need, we may find in the Scriptures--that by the
Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the
breath of His mouth;--and this much of Political, that the Blessing of
the Lord, _it_ maketh rich--and He addeth no sorrow with it.

(E) "What I do expect to find." Has your Lordship _no_ expectations
loftier than these, from severer scrutiny of the Gospel? As for
instance, of some ordinance of Love, built on the foundation of Honesty?

161. (F) "Cannot without a violent twist." I have never myself found any
person sincerely desirous of obeying the Word of the Lord, who had the
least wish, or occasion, to twist it; nay, even those who study it only
that they may discover methods of pardonable disobedience, recognize the
unturnable edge of its sword--and in the worst extremity of their need,
strive not to avert, but to evade. The utmost deceivableness of
unrighteousness cannot deceive itself into satisfactory
misinterpretation; it is reduced always to a tremulous omission of the
texts it is resolved to disobey. But a little while since, I heard an
entirely well-meaning clergyman, taken by surprise in the course of
family worship in the house of a wealthy friend, and finding himself
under the painful necessity of reading the fifteenth Psalm, omit the
first sentence of the closing verse. I chanced afterwards to have an
opportunity of asking him why he had done so, and received for answer,
that the lowliness of Christian attainment was not yet "up" to that
verse. The harmonies of iniquity are thus curiously perfect:--the
economies of spiritual nourishment approve the same methods of
adulteration which are found profitable in the carnal; until the prudent
pastor follows the example of the well-instructed dairyman; and
provides for his new-born