A truly notable parliamentary utterance on the Budget, if it might be! Not for a little while yet, thinks Sir Stafford; perhaps, think wiser and more sorrowful people than he, not until England has had to stone, according to the law of Deuteronomy xxi. 18, some of the children she has got: or at least to grapeshot them. I couldn’t get anything like comfortable rooms in the Pea Hen at St. Alban’s, the day before yesterday, because the Pea Hen was cherishing, for chickens under her wings, ever so many officers of the Royal Artillery; and some beautiful sixteen-pounders,—exquisite fulfilments of all that science could devise, in those machines; which were unlimbered in the market-place, on their way to Sheffield—where I am going myself, as it happens. I wonder much, in the name of my mistress, whose finger is certainly in this pie, what business we have there, (both of us,) the black machines, and I. As Atropos would have it, too, I had only been making out, with good Mr. Douglas’s help, in Woolwich Repository on Wednesday last, a German Pea Hen’s inscription on a sixteen-pounder of the fourteenth century:— Ich bin fürwahr, ein Grober Baur Ver frist mein ayr, es wurd ihm Saur. Verse 5th. “And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Tell now the stars, if thou be able to number them. So shall thy seed be.” Of course you would have answered God instantly, and told Him the exact number of the stars, and all their magnitudes. Simple Abram, conceiving that, even if he did count all he could see, there might yet be a few more out of sight, does not try. Verse 6th. “And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness.” That, on the whole, is the primary verse of the entire Bible. If that is true, the rest is worth whatever Heaven is worth; if that is untrue, the rest is worth nothing. You had better, therefore, if you can, learn it also in Greek and Latin. “Καὶ ἐπίστευσεν Ἀβραμ τῷ Θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην. “Credidit Abram Deo, et reputatum est illo in justitiam.” If, then, that text be true, it will follow that you also, if you would have righteousness counted to you, must believe God. And you can’t believe Him if He never says anything to you. Whereupon it will be desirable again to consider if He ever has said anything to you; and if not, why not. After this verse, I don’t understand much of the chapter myself—but I never expect to understand everything in the Bible, or even more than a little; and will make what I can of it. Verses 7th, 8th. “And He said, I the Lord brought thee, to give thee this land, to inherit it. “But he said, Lord, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” Now, I don’t see how he could know it better than by being told so; nor how he knew it any better, after seeing a lamp moving between half-carcases. But we will at least learn, as well as we can, what happened; and think it over.