the fact that he knew something of the history of his forefathers,
though, indeed, there are some men who seem to have no other. It was
strange, however, to think of that man working away at a trade in
the very house in which such ancestors had eaten and drunk, and
married and given in marriage. The house and family had declined
together--in outward appearance at least; for it was quite possible
both might have risen in the moral and spiritual scale in proportion
as they sank in the social one. And if any of my readers are at
first inclined to think that this could hardly be, seeing that the
man was little, if anything, better than an infidel, I would just
like to hold one minute's conversation with them on that subject. A
man may be on the way to the truth, just in virtue of his doubting.
I will tell you what Lord Bacon says, and of all writers of English
I delight in him: "So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin
with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content
to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." Now I could not
tell the kind or character of this man's doubt; but it was evidently
real and not affected doubt; and that was much in his favour. And I
couid see that he was a thinking man; just one of the sort I thought
I should get on with in time, because he was honest--
notwithstanding that unpleasant smile of his, which did irritate me
a little, and partly piqued me into the determination to get the
better of the man, if I possibly could, by making friends with him.
At all events, here was another strange parishioner. And who could
it be that he was like?