I have a story to tell you, my dear Eusebius, of a tender conscience. It will please you; for you delight to extract good out of evil, and find something ever to say in favour of the "poor wretches of this world's coinage," as you call them; thus gently throwing half their errors, and scattering them among a pretty large society to be responsible for them; provided only they be wretches by confession, that dare not hide themselves in hypocrisy. In all such cases you show that you were born with the genius of a beadle, and (strange conjunction) the tenderest of hearts. I believe that you would stand an hour at a pillory, and see full justice done to a delinquent of that caste; and would as willingly, in your own person, receive the missiles that you would attempt to ward off from the contrite wretch, whose sins might not have been woefully against human kindness. Could you choose your seat in the eternal mansions, it would be among the angels that rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. You can distinguish in another the feeblest light of conscience that ever dimly burned, and see in it the germ of a beautiful light, that may one day, by a little fanning and fostering, shine as a star, and shed a vital heat that may set the machinery of the heart in motion to throw off glorious actions. But let not the man that shams a conscience come in your way. I have seen you play off such an one till he has burst forth--up, up, up, aiming at the skies, nothing less, in his self-glorification; and how have you despised him, and exhibited him to all bystanders as nothing but a poor stick in his descent! These human rockets are at their best but falling stars--cinders incapable of being rekindled. Commend me to the modest glow-worms, that shine only when they think the gazing world is asleep, and dwell in green hedges, and fancy themselves invisible to all eyes but those of love.