prison threshold a new-made man; and wending towards his happy home, had
in his face--so lately smirched with shameless vice--such lustrous glory,
that even his dearest creditors failed to recognise him!

Beautiful is the village church of Phariseefield! Beautiful is its
antiquity--beautiful its porch, thronged with white-headed men and ruddy
little ones! Beautiful the graves, sown with immortal seed, clustering
round the building! Beautiful the vicar's horses--the vicar himself
preaches to-day,--and very beautiful indeed, the faces, ay, and the
bonnets, too, of the vicar's daughters! Beautiful the sound of the bell
that summons the lowly Christian to cast aside the pomps and vanities of
the world, and to stand for a time in utter nakedness of heart before his
Maker,--and very beautiful the silk stockings of the Dowager Lady Canaan's
footman, who carrieth with Sabbath humility his Lady's books to Church!
Yet all this beauty is as deformity to the new-born loveliness of _John
Jones_; who, on the furthermost seat--far from the vain convenience of pew
and velvet hassock--sits, and inwardly blesses the one shilling and
fourteen shillings costs, that with more than fifteen-horse power have
drawn him from the iniquities of the Jerry-shop and hustle-farthing,--to
feed upon the manna dropping from the lips of the Reverend Doctor FAT!
There sits _John Jones_, late drunkard, poacher, reprobate; but now, fined
into Christian goodness--made a very saint, according to Act of
Parliament!

If Mother Church, with the rods of spikenard which the law hath
benevolently placed in her hands, will but whip her truant children to
their Sunday seats,--will only consent to draw them through the bars of a
prison to their Sabbath sittings,--will teach them the real value of
Christianity, it being according to her own estimate--_with the
expenses_--exactly fifteen shillings,--sure we are, that Radicalism and