In the next letter, his opponent complains that Father Spencer has _hurt his feelings_, and made his _heart sicken_, which complaint the _wily priest_, as he was termed, began to answer thus:-- "I have heard of certain ladies who have recourse to a method something like this to escape being kept in order by their husbands, and who silence everything that is said against their humours by falling into hysterics. A tender husband will once or twice perhaps be melted by the alarming spectacle; he will run and fetch the smelling-bottle, ring for the servants, beg pardon, and say pretty things to compose his dear partner's mind again. But when he finds that as soon as she has gained her point she gets well directly, and is more saucy and wilful than before--if he wishes to be happy, or to make her so--he will be what she calls cruel next time, and let her get well by herself till she is tired of fainting fits. Now, sir, I have once been tender-hearted over you .... I apologized .... {237} In the next letter you took advantage of this to make an impertinent remark. This discovered to me that your feelings need not be so tenderly dealt with, and I proceeded with my disagreeable questions, and shall still do so at the risk of your telling me in the next letter that I have not only sickened you, but made you quite faint away." After thus sickening his delicate friend, he sums up in the last letter and answers the difficulties objected to him very well indeed. We forbear introducing purely controversial matter, except in as far as it bears upon the peculiar gifts or manner of Father Spencer. There is nothing but what any ordinary priest of fair acquirements could have said in defence of our doctrines in the remainder, except that the answer to the hackneyed objection about some councils being of doubtful authority is very clearly and forcibly given.