"No, indeed, not yet," said I, smiling.

"Do so, my son, before you go out; depend on it you will enjoy your walk
more."

I confess that it was with some reluctance I obeyed. I went back to my
own room and sat resolutely down to my task. Are there any of you, my
readers, who have not read the "Life of Robert Hall?" If so, in the
words of the great Captain Cuttle, "When found, make a note of it."
Never mind what your theological opinion is,--Episcopalian,
Presbyterian, Baptist, Paedobaptist, Independent, Quaker, Unitarian,
Philosopher, Freethinker,--send for Robert Hall! Yea, if there exists
yet on earth descendants of the arch-heretics which made such a noise in
their day,--men who believe, with Saturninus, that the world was made by
seven angels; or with Basilides, that there are as many heavens as there
are days in the year; or with the Nicolaitanes, that men ought to have
their wives in common (plenty of that sect still, especially in the Red
Republic); or with their successors, the Gnostics, who believed in
Jaldaboath; or with the Carpacratians, that the world was made by the
devil; or with the Cerinthians and Ebionites and Nazarites (which last
discovered that the name of Noah's wife was Ouria, and that she set the
ark on fire); or with the Valentinians, who taught that there were
thirty AEones, ages or worlds, born out of Profundity (Bathos), male,
and Silence, female; or with the Marcites, Colarbasii, and Heracleonites
(who still kept up that bother about AEones, Mr. Profundity and Mrs.
Silence); or with the Ophites, who are said to have worshipped the
serpent; or the Cainites, who ingeniously found out a reason for
honoring Judas, because he foresaw what good would come to men by
betraying our Saviour; or with the Sethites, who made Seth a part of the
divine substance; or with the Archonticks, Ascothyctae, Cerdonians,