Madame de Sévigné frankly deposes of her capacity as regards wordy consolation: “_Pour moi, je ne sais point de paroles dans une telle occasion._” Mr. Tennyson submits what is applicable to any _telle occasion_, “That only silence suiteth best. Words weaker than your grief would make Grief more. ’Twere better I should cease.” Miss Procter sings the praises of a true comforter in little Effie,—“just I think that she does not try,—only looks with a wistful wonder why grown people should ever cry.” It is such a comfort to be able to cry in peace, adds that sweet singer (with _larmes dans la voix_): “And my comforter knows a lesson Wiser, truer than all the rest:— That to help and to heal a sorrow, Love and silence are always best.” _THE TEMPTER’S “IT IS WRITTEN.”_ MATTHEW iv. 6. “It is written,” said the Tempter, quoting Scripture for his purpose, when it was his hour and the power of darkness, in the day of temptation in the wilderness. The quotation was refuted on the spot, and the Tempter was foiled. But his failure has not deterred mankind, at sundry times and in divers manners, from venturing on the same appeal, with no very unlike design. The wise as serpents (there was a serpent in Eden) who are not also harmless as doves, have now and then essayed to round a sophistic period, or clench an immoral argument, with an _It is written_. Among the crowd of pilgrims who throng the pages of his allegory, Bunyan depicts one Mr. Selfwill, who holds that a man may follow the vices as well as the virtues of pilgrims; and that if he does both, he shall certainly be saved. But what ground has he for so saying? is Mr. Greatheart’s query. And old Mr. Honesty replies, “Why, he said he had Scripture for his warrant.” He could cite David’s practice in one bad direction, and Sarah’s lying in another, and Jacob’s dissimulation in a third. And what they did, he might do too. “I have heard him plead for it, bring Scripture for it, bring arguments for it,” etc., quoth old Honesty with a degree of indignation that does credit to his name. “The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the core.” Such is Antonio’s stricture on Shylock’s appeal to Jacob’s practice, “When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban’s sheep”; and there is a parallel passage in the next act, where Bassanio is the speaker:— “In religion, What damnèd error but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?” Against divines, indeed, of every school and age, the reproach of citing a text in support of doctrine or practice the reverse of divine, has been freely cast, with more or less of reason. Orthodox and heterodox, each has flung against the other his retort uncourteous.