might he not, at least, find weakness in the law? Then fell the pebble.

It was only a country newspaper, and it was only the chance verses
clipped from some unknown source which turned the tide that might have
grown yet have run forever between narrow banks.

For the verses--who wrote them?--were those of that brief poem which
has made more doubters than any single revelation of the
hollow-heartedness of some famed godly one; than any effort of oratory
of some great agnostic; than any chapter of any book that was ever
written:

I think till I'm weary of thinking,
Said the sad-eyed Hindoo king,
And I see but shadows around me,
Illusion in every thing.

How knowest thou aught of God,
Of His favor or His wrath?
Can the little fish tell what the lion thinks,
Or map out the eagle's path!

Can the Finite the Infinite search!
Did the blind discover the stars?
Is the thought that I think a thought,
Or a throb of a brain in its bars?

For aught that my eyes can discern,
Your God is what you think good--
Yourself flashed back from the glass