"Yes, and that you feared the increased number of the congregation proceeded far more from curiosity than kindliness or devotion." "I did say so, and my fears are confirmed: some affairs brought Morton to Torrington for two or three days this week, and yesterday I called on him, and had some hours' interesting conversation. He was evidently even more than usually depressed and self-shrinking, if I may use the word, and at length touched, it seemed, by my sympathy, he drew my attention to a poem in Harris's 'Weekly Magazine.'" "'It is not enough that it has pleased my God to afflict me,' he said, 'but my fellow-creatures must unkindly make me the subject of attacks such as these. There is indeed no name, but to none else but me will it apply.' I could not reply, for I really felt too deeply for him. It was such a cruel, wanton insult, the very talent of the writer, for the verses though few in number were remarkably clever, adding to their gall." "I wonder Harris should have published them," observed Miss Harcourt; "his paper is not in general of a personal kind." "It is never sufficiently guarded; and it would require a person of higher principles than I fear Harris has, to resist the temptation of inserting a satire likely to sell a double or treble number of his papers. I spoke to him at once, and bought up every one that remained; but though he expressed regret, it was not in a tone that at all satisfied me as to his feeling it, and of course, as the paper has been published since last Saturday evening, the circulation had nearly ceased. If I could but know the author, I think I could make him feel the excessive cruelty, if not the actual guilt, of his wanton deed." "But, dear papa, the person who wrote it might not have known his story," interposed Caroline, to Edward's and Ellen's astonishment, that she had courage to speak at all; for their uncle's unusual tone and look brought back almost more vividly than it had ever done before their mother's lessons of his exceeding and terrible sternness. "That does not excuse the ridicule, my dear child; it only confirms the lesson I have so often tried to teach you all, that any thing tending by word or deed to hurt the feelings of a fellow-creature, is absolutely wrong--wrong in the thing itself, not according to the greater or less amount of pain it may excite." "But, my dear husband, the writer may not have been so taught. Satire and ridicule are unhappily so popular, that these verses may have been penned without any thought of their evil tendency, merely as to the _éclat_ they would bring their author. We must not be too severe, for we do not know--"