"'Harmless mirth,' said Dr. Fuller the other day, 'is the best cordial against the consumption of the spirits, but jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word. Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in but the font? Or to drink healths in but the church-chalice?' "He is very busy, and is abstemious in eating and drinking, and is an early riser. Sir Launcelot, liking not, I ween, to feel the jest so against himself, calls him a Puritan in disguise; but Harry and he are good friends, and to my Mother he behaveth ever with a gentle deference, as all men, indeed, are wont to do. With her his wit seems to change its nature from fire to sunshine. So tenderly doth he seek to brighten her pensive and somewhat self-reproachful spirit into peace and praise. She on her part hath her sweet returns of sympathy for him, drawing him forth to discourse of his young wife lately dead, and his motherless infant boy. "Religion with my Mother is a life of affections, not merely a code of rules; and, I suppose, like all affections, brings its sorrows as well as its joys. Otherwise I could scarce account for the heaviness she so often is burdened withal. "One day, when she was fearing to embrace the cheering words of Scripture, Dr. Fuller encouraged her by reminding her how in the Hebrews the promise, 'I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee,' though at first made only to Joshua, is applied to all good men. 'All who trust the Saviour, and follow him,' said he, 'are heirs-apparent to all the promises.' "But she, who being a saint (by any laws of canonization) ever bemoaneth herself as though she were a penitent weeping between the porch and the altar, put off his consolation with-- "'True, indeed, for all _good_ men.' "To which he, unlike most ghostly comforters I have heard, replied with no honeyed commendation, false or true, but said,-- "'In the agony of a wounded conscience always look upward to God to keep thy soul steady. For looking downward on thyself, thou shalt find nothing but what will increase thy fear; infinite sins, good deeds few and imperfect. It is not thy faith, but God's faithfulness thou must rely on. Casting thine eyes down to thyself, to behold the great distance between what thou desirest and what thou deservest is enough to make thee giddy, stagger, and reel unto despair. Ever, therefore, lift up thine eyes to the hills whence cometh thine help.'