"Doctor! Doctor!" cried a ragged, dirty-faced boy, running breathless
into the yard.

"What's the matter, my lad?" said the Doctor.

"Mother wants you to come right over to our house. Father's tumbled off
the hay-cart; and when they got him up he didn't know nothing; but they
gin him some rum, and that kinder brought him to."

"No doubt, no doubt," said the Doctor, rising to go. "Similia similibus
curantur. Nothing like hair of the dog that bites you."

"The Doctor talks well," said the Skipper, who had listened rather
dubiously to his friend's commentaries on his story; "but he carries too
much sail for me sometimes, and I can't exactly keep alongside of him.
I told Elder. Staples once that I did n't see but that the Doctor could
beat him at preaching. 'Very likely,' says the Elder, says he; 'for you
know, Skipper, I must stick to my text; but the Doctor's Bible is all
creation.'"

"Yes," said the Elder, who had joined us a few moments before, "the
Doctor takes a wide range, or, as the farmers say, carries a wide swath,
and has some notions of things which in my view have as little
foundation in true philosophy as they have warrant in Scripture; but,
if he sometimes speculates falsely, he lives truly, which is by far
the most important matter. The mere dead letter of a creed, however
carefully preserved and reverently cherished, may be of no more
spiritual or moral efficacy than an African fetish or an Indian
medicine-bag. What we want is, orthodoxy in practice,--the dry bones
clothed with warm, generous, holy life. It is one thing to hold fast