Sir E. F. operated on a theological system. His discourse on the Relations between Natural and Revealed Religion profoundly impressed those who heard it for the first time, and his tractate on Medical Missions in India ran into a third edition. In his waiting-room one found, instead of last month's _Punch_ or the Christmas number of _Madame_, devotional works inscribed "From his grateful patient, the author." In his consulting-room a sacred picture of large dimensions crowned the mantelpiece, and signed portraits of bishops whom he had delivered from dyspepsia adorned the walls. Ritualistic clergy frequented him in great numbers, and--what was better still--recommended their congregations to the "beloved physician." Ecclesiastically-minded laymen delighted in him, and came away with a comfortable conviction, syllogistically arranged, that (1) one's first duty is to maintain one's health; (2) whatever one likes is healthy; therefore (3) one's first duty is to like exactly as one likes. A water-drinking adherent of Mr. Gladstone once saw that eminent man crowning a banquet of champagne with a glass of undeniable port. "Oh! Mr. Gladstone," he exclaimed in the bitterness of his soul, "what would Sir E. F. say if he could see you mixing your liquors?" The great man's defence was ready to his hand: "Sir E. F. assures me that, if I let fifteen minutes elapse between two kinds of wine, there is no mixture." Somehow these lively oracles of Sir E. F.'s, with which I was always coming in contact, left on my mind a dim impression that he must have been related to the doctor who attended Little Nell and prescribed the remedies which the landlady had already applied: "Everybody said he was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly well what people's constitutions were, which there appears some reason to suppose he did." VI MOURNING My infant mind was "suckled in a creed outworn," in the form of a book called, by a strange misnomer, a "Book of Useful Knowledge." It was there stated, if my memory serves me, that "the Chinese mourn in yellow, but Kings and Cardinals mourn in purple." In what do modern English people mourn? That is the subject of to-day's enquiry.