"I do not impeach the 'truth of Religion.' You need not speak so reproachfully, Arthur. I believe in the Christianity of the Scriptures. What I assail, is intermittent piety; springs, whose channels are dusty, save at particular seasons;--camp-meetings and the like; men, who furbish up their religion, along with their go-to-meeting boots, and wear it no longer. Their brethren despise them as I do; but their mouths are shut, lest they 'bring disgrace upon their profession.' It can have no fouler disgrace than their lives afford. I speak what others conceal; when one of these whited sepulchres lifts his Bible to break my head, for a graceless reprobate, I pelt him with pebbles from the clear brook. Look at old Thistleton! a mongrel,--porcupine and bull-dog;--pricking and snarling from morning 'till night. A Christian is a _gentleman_; he is a surly growler. Half of the church hate, the other half dread him; yet he sits on Sabbaths, in the high places of the synagogues, leads prayer-meetings, and weeps over sinners--sanctified 'brother Thistleton.' He thunders the law at me; and I knock him down with a stout stick, St. John cuts ready to my hand;--'If a man say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a _liar_!' I hush up Rogers, with--'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom;' and Mather, with, 'You cannot serve God and Mammon.' They say I am a scoffer;--I don't care. Now"--continued this contrary being, passing into a tone of reverent feeling;--"There is my kind guardian. I don't believe he ever shouted, or made a public address in his life. He _lives_ his religion; a child can perceive that the Bible is a 'lamp to his feet;' a pillar of cloud in prosperity; a sun in adversity. I saw it when a boy, and it did me more good than the preached sermons I have listened to since. He called me into his study the night before I left home, and gave me a copy of 'the book.' 'Charley, my son,' said he, 'you are venturing upon untried seas; here is the Chart, to which I have trusted for twenty years; and have never been led by it, upon a quicksand. Look to it, my boy!' I have read it, more, because he asked it, than for its intrinsic value; that is my failing, not his. I have waded through sloughs of theories and objections; but hold to it still. Especially, when I am here, and kneel in my old place at the family altar; hear the solemn tones, that quieted my boyish gayety; when I witness his irreproachable, useful life, I say, 'His chart is true; would I were guided by it!' No--no--Art.! I may be careless and sinful;--I am no skeptic."