against the devil is to attack him. He has got it too much his own way
to meddle with us if we don't meddle with him. But the very devil has
feelings, and if you prick him will roar...whereby you, at all events, gain
the not-every-day-of-the-week-to-be-attained benefit of finding out where
he is. Unless, indeed, as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as
big grasshoppers do when you chase them), and puts you on a wrong scent,
by crying 'Fire!' out of saints' windows. Still, the odds are if you prick
lustily enough, you make him roar unawares."

The memorials of his many controversies lie about in the periodicals of
that time, and any one who cares to hunt them up will be well repaid, and
struck with the vigour of the defence, and still more with the complete
change in public opinion, which has brought the England of to-day clean
round to the side of Parson Lot. The most complete perhaps of his fugitive
pieces of this kind is the pamphlet, "Who are the friends of Order?"
published by J. W. Parker and Son, in answer to a very fair and moderate
article in "Fraser's Mazagine." The Parson there points out how he and
his friends were "cursed by demagogues as aristocrats, and by tories as
democrats, when in reality they were neither." And urges that the very fact
of the Continent being overrun with Communist fanatics is the best argument
for preaching association here.

But though he faced his adversaries bravely, it must not be inferred that
he did not feel the attacks and misrepresentations very keenly. In many
respects, though housed in a strong and vigorous body, his spirit was an
exceedingly tender and sensitive one. I have often thought that at this
time his very sensitiveness drove him to say things more broadly and
incisively, because he was speaking as it were somewhat against the grain,
and knew that the line he was taking would be misunderstood, and would
displease and alarm those with whom he had most sympathy. For he was by