assurance, from me, that I should act with discretion. He did not want
sermons; he had enough: but this pleased him: though, if it were known
it were a borrowed discourse, especially borrowed from so young a man
not yet in orders, it might derogate from episcopal dignity.

Enraptured at the fund of self approbation which I collected from all
this, I ardently replied, 'I knew not how to express my sense of the
honour his lordship did me; that I could neither be so absurd as to
offend his lordship nor so unjust as to be insensible of his favours;
that I held the sacerdotal character to be too sacred to suffer any
man to trifle with it, much less to be guilty of the crime myself;
and that, if his lordship would oblige me by fulfilling his kind
intention, my lips should be irrevocably and for ever closed. The
honour would be an ample reward, and, whatever my wishes might be, it
was more than I could have hoped and greater perhaps than I deserved.'

It might well be expected that at this age I should fall into a
mistake common to mankind, and consider secrecy as a virtue; yet
I think it strange that I did not soon detect the duplicity of my
conduct, nor imagine there was any guilt in being the agent of deceit.
But this proves that my morality had not yet taught me rigidly to
chastise myself into truth; nor had it been in the least aided by the
example of the agreeable Enoch. Perhaps I did not even, at the moment,
suspect myself to be guilty of exaggeration.

Notwithstanding the caution given me, no sooner had I quitted the
ghostly governor than I hastened to my little upright friend. Tell him
indeed I must not: honour, shame, principle, forbade. Yet to keep the
good news wholly secret would be to render the severe covenant cruel.
What could be done?