And, indeed, it would have been strange if the congregation could have been edified by such a sermon and such a minister. Oswald, who had found a seat opposite the pulpit, and behind the pew of the great nobleman, discovered at the first glance at the preacher, and after a few words of his sermon, that there was about as much sympathy between the minister and the congregation as between a learned missionary and a tribe of good-natured savages. The minister, a small, lean man of about forty, with his dried-up, withered face, seemed to feel this himself very clearly, for he had scarcely seen Oswald when he began to address himself to him almost exclusively, as the only one capable of appreciating the precious pearls which an unwise government forced him to cast here before the swine. "Oh, my devout brethren," he exclaimed, fixing his eyes through his spectacles upon Oswald, who tried to hide as well as he could behind the golden curls of the little girl, "Oh, my devout hearers, you see how weak our reason is in face of these momentous questions. And yet, and yet, oh, much beloved, there are misguided brethren and sisters who still rely on the dim rushlight of reason long after the sun has risen for them also. Alas! this little stump of a farthing candle seems to them bright enough in the days of feasting, frolicking, and jubileeing, but not so in the days of old age with its solemn thoughts and grave anxieties. Therefore, abandon your faith in reason, and hold fast on faith! Abandon your idle trust in sound common-sense, as you call it! Oh, my devout hearers, this sound common-sense is a sick, very sick sense, is a device of the devil's, and a will-o'-the-wisp which leads you inevitably into the pool of perdition." Oswald was strangely, but by no means pleasantly affected by this sermon, which continued for half an hour more, richly larded with quotations from Holy Writ. He was deeply impressed with the contrast between the simple, childlike submission of the old woman to the great, eternal laws of nature, and her modest but solemn way of stating them, and the arrogant self-assurance with which the man in the pulpit decided on the most solemn questions, and condemned every sound sentiment and natural impulse of our heart as empty show and deceitful delusion. The unadorned wisdom of the matron was fresh and fragrant, like a flower on the heath; the boastful knowledge of the preacher, like a plant grown in the hot, oppressive air of a greenhouse, luxuriant in leaves and stalk, but without sap and strength and flowers. Oswald was glad when the learned preacher came at last to say amen! after having once more denounced the morality and anathematized the souls of all who thought differently from himself.