of soap--and a coarse towel--he thought would give a cockney on
Ludgate-hill a clean skin--just as many good people think that a Bible,
a prayer-book, and a long sermon can give a clear conscience to a
criminal in Newgate. The cause of the evil, in both cases, lies too deep
for tears. Millions of men and women pass through nature to eternity
clean-skinned and pious--with slight expense either in soap or sermons;
while millions more, with much week-day bodily scrubbing, and much
Sabbath spiritual sanctification, are held in bad odour here, while they
live, by those who happen to sit near them, and finally go out like the
snuff of a candle.--_Blackwoods Magazine_.

* * * * *


QUACKERY.


A short time since a soi-disant doctor sold water of the pool of
Bethesda, which was to cure all complaints, if taken at the time when
the angel visited the parent spring, on which occasion the doctor's
bottled water manifested, he said, its sympathy with its fount by its
perturbation. Hundreds purchased the Bethesda-water, and watched for
the commotion and the consequence, with the result to be expected. At
last one, less patient than the rest, went to the doctor, and complained
that though he had kept his eye constantly on the water for a whole
year, he had never yet discovered anything like the signs of an angel in
his bottle.

"That's extremely strange," exclaimed the doctor. "What sized bottle did
you buy, sir?"