“I quite agree with you,” replied Mr. Wilmot: “the very mortifications they endure may induce self-love, or, I should rather say, self-righteousness; and nothing, I think it will be generally allowed, can be more contrary to the tenor of the gospel spirit. Very different was the conduct of Bernard Palissy, a native of Saintes, in the south of France, who lived in the reign of Henry the Third. He was a potter by trade; but, having an innate genius for the sciences, he devoted all the time he could spare from his pottery, to the cultivation of them. “The king hearing of him, and curious to see so extraordinary a character, sent for him to Paris, and had several interviews with him. Palissy was, by religion, a protestant; and it was thought his religious principles were the great obstacles to his fortune. “One day the king told him, unless he would change his religion he should be compelled to withdraw his protection from him. Palissy heard the king with the respect due to his rank, but answered with a firm and dignified tone: ‘Your majesty has frequently told me that you pitied my case, but since you can say that you shall be compelled to withdraw your protection from me, I now pity yours. This is not the language of a king; yet know, Sire, that not the whole faction of the Guises, nor all the catholic subjects united, shall ever compel a potter of Saintes to bow the knee to senseless images of wood and stone.’ “The king was so struck with the answer, that he never after mentioned the subject of changing his religion to Palissy; but suffered him, in a short time, to return home to his native town, where he remained in peace to the end of his life. He lived to a great age; never forsaking his business, nor ceasing, in his moments of leisure to follow his favourite scientific pursuits.” “I am admiring,” said Mrs. Spencer, “this figure of Demosthenes addressing the multitude. What energy and spirit there is in his action.” “Yes,” replied Mr. Wilmot; “and every thing that relates to such a character, is highly interesting, both because it is intimately connected with the history of the times, and because it is a striking example of the influence of mind over the greatest physical powers. Though he neither wore the insignia of royalty, nor presided as supreme magistrate over a powerful republic, nor commanded fleets and armies; yet, by the mere thunder of his eloquence, he made the mightiest monarchs of his day tremble upon their thrones, and roused the slumbering energies of Greece. He was the son of an opulent Athenian manufacturer. “The style of oratory that charmed his youthful fancy, was not the mild and flowing eloquence of Isocrates, who was then the most celebrated rhetorician in Athens; but the nervous and impassioned harangues of Isæus, whose school, as well as that of the philosophical Plato, he constantly attended.