of Henry Martyn's; but the idea was so incongruous that the startled
essayist was disposed to doubt the evidence of his senses. "There
must have been a mistake somewhere."

To such a man the world is not, and never can be, a tragi-comedy,
and laughter seems forever out of place. When a Madeira negress, a
good Christian after her benighted fashion, asked Martyn if the
English were ever baptized, he did not think the innocent question
funny, he thought it horrible. He found Saint Basil's writings
unsatisfactory, as lacking "evangelical truth"; and, could he have
heard this great doctor of the Church fling back a witticism in the
court of an angry magistrate, he would probably have felt more
doubtful than ever concerning the status of the early Fathers. It
is a relief to turn from the letters of Martyn, with their aloofness
from the cheerful currents of earth, to the letters of Bishop Heber,
who, albeit a missionary and a keen one, had always a laugh for the
absurdities which beset his wandering life. He could even tell with
relish the story of the drunken pedlar whom he met in Wales, and who
confided to him that, having sold all his wares, he was trying to
drink up the proceeds before he got home, lest his wife should take
the money away from him. Heber, using the argument which he felt would
be of most avail, tried to frighten the man into soberness by
picturing his wife's wrath; whereupon the adroit scamp replied that
he knew what _that_ would be, and had taken the precaution to have
his hair cut short, so that she could not get a grip on it. Martyn
could no more have chuckled over this depravity than he could have
chuckled over the fallen angels; but Saint Teresa could have laughed
outright, her wonderful, merry, infectious laugh; and have then
proceeded to plead, to scold, to threaten, to persuade, until a
chastened and repentant pedlar, money in hand, and some dim