"The pure white arrow of the light They split into its colours seven; They weighed the sun; they dwelt, like night, Among the stars of heaven; "They 've found out life and death,--the first Is known but to the upper classes; The second, pooh! 't is at the worst A dissolution into gases. "And vice and virtue are akin, As black and white from Adam issue,-- One flesh, one blood, though sheeted in A different coloured tissue. "Their science groped from star to star;-- But then herself found nothing greater. What wonder?--in a Leyden jar They bottled the Creator. "Fires fluttered on their lightning-rod; They cleared the human mind from error; They emptied heaven of its God, And Tophet of its terror. "Better the savage in his dance Than these acute and syllogistic! Better a reverent ignorance Than knowledge atheistic! "Have they dispelled one cloud that lowers So darkly on the human creature? They with their irreligious powers Have subjugated nature. "But, as a satyr wins the charms Of maiden in a forest hearted, He finds, when clasped within his arms, The outraged soul departed." When I had done reading these verses, he clergyman glanced slyly along to see the effect of his shot. The doctor drew two or three hurried whiffs, gave a huge grunt of scorn, then, turning sharply, asked, "What is 'a reverent ignorance'? What is 'a knowledge atheistic'?" The clergyman, skewered by the sudden question, wriggled a little, and then began to explain,--with no great heart, however, for he had had his little joke out, and did not care to carry it further. The doctor listened for a little, and then, laying down his pipe, said, with some heat, "It won't do. 'Reverent ignorance' and such trash is a mere jingle of words; _that_ you know as well as I. You stumbled on these verses, and brought them up here to throw them at me. They don't harm me in the least, I can assure you. There is no use," continued the doctor, mollifying at the sight of his friend's countenance, and seeing how the land lay,--"there is no use speaking to our incurious, solitary friend here, who could bask comfortably in sunshine for a century, without once inquiring whence came the light and heat. But let me tell you," lifting his pipe and shaking it across me at the clergyman, "that science has done services to your cloth which have not always received the most grateful acknowledgments. Why, man," here he began to fill his pipe slowly, "the theologian and the man of science, although they seem to diverge and lose sight of each other, are all the while working to one end. Two exploring parties in Australia set out from one point; the one goes east, and the other west. They lose sight of each other, they know nothing of one another's whereabouts; but they are all steering to one point,"--the sharp spirt of a fusee on the garden-seat came in here,