Among them, however, were also many tiny novelettes, of which, young ladies, I to-day begin translating for you one of the shortest; hoping that you will not think the worse of it for being written by a clergyman. Of this author I will only say, that, though I am not prejudiced in favour of persons of his profession, I think him the wisest man, take him all in all, with whose writings I am acquainted; chiefly because he showed his wisdom in pleasant and unappalling ways; as, for instance, by keeping, for the chief ornament of his study (not being able to afford expensive books), one book beautifully bound, and shining with magnificence of golden embossing; this book of books being his register, out of which he read, from the height of his pulpit, the promises of marriage. "Dans lequel il lisait, du haut de la chaire, les promesses de mariage." He rose always early; breakfasted himself at six o'clock; and then got ready with his own hands the family breakfast, liking his servants better to be at work out of doors: wrote till eleven, dined at twelve, and spent the afternoon in his parish work, or in his fields, being a farmer of shrewdest and most practical skill; and through the Sundays of fifteen years, never once was absent from his pulpit. And now, before I begin my little story, which is a translation of a translation, for the original is German, and I can only read French, I must say a few serious words as to the sense in which I wish you to receive what religious instruction this romantic clergyman may sometimes mingle with his romance. He is an Evangelical divine of the purest type. It is therefore primarily for my Evangelical readers that I translate this or others of his tales; and if they have read either former letters of 'Fors,' or any of my later books, they must know that I do not myself believe in Evangelical theology. But I shall, with my best care, represent and enforce this clergyman's teaching to my said Evangelical readers, exactly as I should feel it my duty, if I were talking to a faithful Turk, to represent and enforce to him any passage of the Koran which was beyond all question true, in its reference to practical light; and with the bearings of which I was more familiar than he. For I think that our common prayer that God "would take away all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of His word, from all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics," is an entirely absurd one. I do not think all Jews have hard hearts; nor that all infidels would despise God's word, if only they could hear it; nor do I in the least know whether it is my neighbour or myself who is really the heretic. But I pray that prayer for myself as well as others; and in this form, that God would make all Jews honest Jews, all Turks honest Turks, all infidels honest infidels, and all Evangelicals and heretics honest Evangelicals and heretics; that so these Israelites in whom there is no guile, Turks in whom