respect. My business is to cultivate their souls and not their fields.” “What in the world is the matter with you?” said we. “Tell us what has happened.” “Well, come in first,” said he, “upstairs where we shall be more comfortable. My throat is as dry as a lime-kiln, I must have something to drink. Now what do you say to that? You must have tasted worse in your time. But would you believe it, my friends, those brutes actually wanted me to have fasts and feasts every day, and for what do you think? For nothing in the world but insects.”--“Insects!” we shouted. “Well, you really must have a bee in your bonnet; are you crazy, or are we?” This was the last straw, and he protested indignantly that it was bad enough to be troubled by all this folly, without being called a fool. “Well then, tell us all about it like a sensible man.”--“You will drive me to perdition,” said he, wiping the sweat from his brow, “the good Lord and I have been so harried and bothered with all this nonsense, I must try to calm down!--You know these people of mine want their vicar to provide rain and sunshine for them. They jeer at the life eternal and don’t keep their souls any cleaner than their feet, but they expect me to make the sun and the moon stand still at their desire.--‘Not too much rain,’ they say, ‘now a little warm weather and a gentle breeze--no frost for pity’s sake--now, Lord, a few drops more on my vineyard--stop!--now give us a wee bit more sunshine!’--If you listen to them you would think prayer was a kind of whip with which to drive their Maker, as a gardener does his old ass that turns a water-wheel. The worst of all this is that they cannot agree among themselves; one wants wet weather, another dry, so they take refuge with the saints, for you must know that there are thirty-seven of them up there, who have charge of rainy weather. The foremost with his lance in his hand, is the great St. Médard.--The fair-weather saints are only two in number, St. Raymond and St. Dié, and it is their duty to brush away the clouds. Then there are St. Blaise, the wind calmer, St. Christopher, St. Valerian, and St. Aurelian who saves us from the hail, the storm, and the thunder; lastly, St. Clare who sweeps the cobwebs out of the sky.--The contradictory prayers of our farmers stir up discord in heaven, and all these saintly personages are at daggers drawn with one another, till Sts. Susan, Helen, and Scholastica actually pull each other’s hair down. The good Lord himself does not know where to turn, and if He does not know, how is it with His poor vicar? After all it is none of my business; my duty is only to forward petitions and the Proprietor can attend to them as He sees fit. This idolatry positively revolts me, but I would not object if these good-for-nothings would not drag me into their quarrels with Heaven, but they are mad enough to try to make use of me and the Cross as a talisman against the pests which devour their crops.