Any man may graduate in the schools of Irreligion and Mispolicy, if he have a glib tongue and a brazen forehead; with these qualities, and a small portion of that talent which is producible on demand, he may take a wrangler's degree. Such men were often met with in the common walks of society, before they became audacious enough to show themselves upon the public theatre, and aspire to form a party in the state. Peter Hopkins could listen to them just with as much indifference as he did to a Jacobite, a Nonjuror, or one to whom the memory of Oliver and the Saints in buff was precious. The Doctor, before he happily became acquainted with Mr. Bacon, held his peace when in the presence of such people, but from a different cause: for though his heart rose against their discourse, and he had an instinctive assurance that it was equally pernicious and false, he had not so stored himself with needful knowledge as to be able to confute the common places of an infidel propagandist. But it has an ill effect upon others, when a person of sounder judgment and more acquirements than themselves, remains silent in the company of such talkers; for, from whatever motive his silence may proceed, it is likely to be considered, both by the assailants of the truth, and by the listeners, as an admission of his inability to maintain the better cause. Great evil has arisen to individuals, and to the community, from allowing scoffers to go unrebuked in private life; and fallacies and falsehoods to pass uncontradicted and unexposed in those channels through which poison is conveyed to the public mind. CHAPTER XCVII. MR. BACON'S PARSONAGE. CHRISTIAN RESIGNATION. TIME AND CHANGE. WILKIE AND THE MONK IN THE ESCURIAL. The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, More moving delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she lived indeed. SHAKESPEARE.