that he might more conveniently turn the leaves of the Bible, and the
hymn-book, and his own sermons.

The pews of the old meeting-house were high, and many of them square. The
heads of the people of consideration in the congregation were mostly
bald, as beseems respectable age, and as the smooth, shiny line of pates
appeared above the wooden line of the pews they somehow sympathetically
blended into one gleaming surface of worn wood and skull, until it seemed
as if the Doctor's theological battles were all fought upon the heads of
his people.

But the Doctor was by no means altogether polemical. After defeating and
utterly confounding the fathers who fired their last shot a thousand
years ago, and who had not a word to say against his remaining master of
the field, he was wont to unbend his mind and recreate his fancy by
practical discourses. His sermons upon lying were celebrated all through
the village. He gave the insidious vice no quarter. He charged upon it
from all sides at once. Lying couldn't stand for a moment. White lies,
black lies, blue lies, and green lies, lies of ceremony, of charity, and
of good intention disappeared before the lightning of his wrath. They are
all children of the Devil, with different complexions, said Dr. Peewee.

But if lying be a vice, surely, said he, discretion is a virtue. "My
dear Mr. Gray," said Dr. Peewee to that gentleman when he was about
establishing his school in the village, and was consulting with the
Doctor about bringing his boys to church--"my dear Mr. Gray," said the
Doctor, putting down his cigar and stirring his toddy (he was of an
earlier day), "above all things a clergyman should be discreet. In
fact, Christianity is discretion. A man must preach at sins, not sinners.
Where would society be if the sins of individuals were to be rudely