"Oh! but," interposed the major, "I'm of a very confiding disposition. I believe everything and every body. The more extraordinary the narrative, the more faith am I inclined to place in it. Trevor, there, as we all know," added he, laughingly, "has a twist. He's a 'total abstinence' man--a homeopathic man--a Benthamite, and secretly favors Mesmerism. With such abounding faith upon some points, we will allow him to be somewhat skeptical upon others. Come, your narrative." "At the sober age of two-and-forty, a period when the season of delusion is pretty well over," said Mr. Ancelôt, pointedly, "I found myself in charge of a notorious fishing-village on the coast of Lincolnshire. It was famous, or rather infamous, for the smuggling carried on in its creeks, and for the vigilant and relentless wreckers which it numbered in its hovels. 'Rough materials!' said the bishop, Dr. Prettyman, when I waited upon him to be licensed to the curacy--rough materials to work upon; but by care and diligence, Mr. Ancelôt, wondrous changes may be effected. Your predecessor, a feeble-minded man, gave but a sorry account of your flock; but under your auspices, I hope they will become a church-going and a church-loving people! Make them churchmen--you understand me? Make them churchmen!'... Heaven help me! They needed first to be made honest and temperate--to be humanized and Christianized! 'Church-loving and church-going!' The chaplaincy of Newgate is not, perhaps, a sinecure; that of the Model Prison at Pentonville has, probably, its hours of toil; and that attached to Horsemonger Lane is not entirely a bed of roses; but if you wish to wear a man's heart and soul out; to depress his spirits and prostrate his energies--if you would make him long to exchange his lot with the day-laborer who whistles at the plow,--station him as a curate, far apart from his fellows, in a village made up of prize-fighters, smugglers, and wreckers!" To my lonely cure, with a heavy heart, I went; and by a most reckless and rebellious crew I speedily found myself surrounded--a crew which defied control. Intoxicating liquors of all kinds abounded. The meanest hovel smelt of spirits. Nor was there any want of contraband tobacco. Foreign luxuries, in a word, were rife among them. And yet they were always in want--always craving from their clergyman temporal aid--in his spiritual capacity they were slow to trouble him; had ever on their lips the entreaty 'give'--'give;' and always protested that they 'were come to their furthest, and had not a shilling in the world to help themselves withal.' "For recklessness, drunkenness, and midnight brawls, all England could not match that parish.