“There is a great deal which they ought to learn, can learn, and must learn, before they can or ought to understand it. How many questions must you have heard from them which you have felt to be best answered, when they were with most dexterity put aside! Let me tell you a story which the Jesuit Manuel de Vergara used to tell of himself. When he was a little boy he asked a Dominican Friar what was the meaning of the seventh commandment, for he said he could not tell what committing adultery was. The Friar not knowing how to answer, cast a perplexed look round the room, and thinking he had found a safe reply pointed to a kettle on the fire, and said the Commandment meant that he must never put his hand in the pot while it was boiling. The very next day, a loud scream alarmed the family, and behold there was little Manuel running about the room holding up his scalded finger, and exclaiming ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I've committed adultery! I've committed adultery! I've committed adultery!’” CHAPTER XVI. P. I. USE AND ABUSE OF STORIES IN REASONING, WITH A WORD IN BEHALF OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS AND IN REPROOF OF THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE. My particular inclination moves me in controversy especially to approve his choice that said, _fortia mallem quam formosa_. DR. JACKSON. I ended that last chapter with a story, and though “I say it who should not say it,” it is a good story well applied. Of what use a story may be even in the most serious debates may be seen from the circulation of old Joes in Parliament, which are as current there as their sterling namesakes used to be in the city some threescore years ago. A jest though it should be as stale as last weeks newspaper, and as flat as Lord Flounder's face, is sure to be received with laughter by the Collective Wisdom of the Nation: nay it is sometimes thrown out like a tub to the whale, or like a trail of carrion to draw off hounds from the scent.