But now, Sir, though I make no doubt you believe every thing you say, what ground have you for expecting that I should? If you tell me you have seen a ghost, and that he frightened you out of your wits, I may have the best reasons in the world for believing that you have seen a ghost; and yet I may doubt all the time whether there were a ghost to be seen. In like manner, though I dare say you are a devout believer in the threats of these incendiaries, the howlings of these wolves, and the voracious declarations of these cannibals; yet, I may after all have liberty to doubt, whether such stories are entitled to a moment’s regard. Travellers, you know, Sir, with the best intentions in the world, often play a trick upon us; and I think it very possible, that a Country Clergyman, with no worse intentions, may be led to do the same. When Bruce described the Abyssinian as cutting a steak from the rump of a living animal, and then driving him on as if nothing had happened, the world smiled at the easy credulity of the honest traveller, and did not believe one particle of the matter: I am inclined to think that the marvellous tales of the Country Clergyman will scarcely meet with a better fate. But let me, Sir, expostulate with you for a moment. I know how unreasonable a passion fear is, and I think it is always worth while to take every honest method of getting rid of it. As a Country Clergyman, I dare say, you are a pretty good horseman; and though I do not suspect you of appearing upon a race-course, or galloping after the hounds, yet I suppose you are no enemy to a pleasant ride. Now it must have happened to you, at least once in your life, as well as to inferior horsemen, to be in imminent danger of breaking your neck by the sudden and unaccountable starting of your horse. Irritable and overbearing men will, you know, under such circumstances, make a furious application of the whip and the spur to the back and sides of the terrified animal. The consequence is, that if he was afraid of the object at first, he will be “horribly afraid” of it ever after. You and I know a better way; and that is, to lead the animal up to the object which occasioned his alarm, and to give him an opportunity of forming a more correct judgment of it. I cannot help thinking, that if you had adopted some such steps, under your first impressions of alarm at the Subscribers to the Bible Society; if, without _venturing yourself_ “into the company of men of whom you have hitherto been always horribly afraid,” you had yet _ventured yourself_ near enough to them, to see whether they were likely men to blow you up in the air, or bury you in their stomachs; you would have been saved from the humiliating necessity of soliciting “the charity of the Noble President to pity your weakness and excuse your unconquerable fears.” {19}