’Tis possible, cried the one. ’Tis impossible, said the other. God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do anything. He can do nothing, replied the Antinosarians, which implies contradictions. He can make matter think, said the Nosarians. As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied the Antinosarians. He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors. ----’Tis false, said their other opponents.---- Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the _reality_ of the nose. --It extends only to all possible things, replied the _Lutherans_. By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he thinks fit, as big as the steeple of _Strasburg_. Now the steeple of _Strasburg_ being the biggest and the tallest church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Antinosarians denied that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least by a middle-siz’d man ----The Popish doctors swore it could --The _Lutheran_ doctors said No; --it could not. This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way, upon the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of God --That controversy led them naturally into _Thomas Aquinas_, and _Thomas Aquinas_ to the devil. The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute--it just served as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity----and then they all sailed before the wind. Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge. The controversy about the attributes, &c., instead of cooling, on the contrary had inflamed the _Strasburgers’_ imaginations to a most inordinate degree ----The less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it--they were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfied----saw their doctors, the _Parchmentarians_, the _Brassarians_, the _Turpentarians_, on one side--the Popish doctors on the other, like _Pantagruel_ and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all embarked out of sight. ----The poor _Strasburgers_ left upon the beach! ----What was to be done? --No delay--the uproar increased----every one in disorder----the city gates set open.---- Unfortunate _Strasburgers!_ was there in the storehouse of nature------was there in the lumber-rooms of learning------was there in the great arsenal of chance, one single engine left undrawn forth to torture your curiosities, and stretch your desires, which was not pointed by the hand of Fate to play upon your hearts? ----I dip not my pen into my ink to excuse the surrender of yourselves--’tis to write your panegyrick. Shew me a city so macerated with expectation----who neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls either of religion or nature for seven-and-twenty days together, who could have held out one day longer. On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to _Strasburg_.