Hearken still further. “I don’t scruple to confess that I sat down to the consideration of this subject strongly prejudiced, personally and socially, against this evil practice; but I rise from the examination of the facts of the case surprised at the magnitude of the abomination to which it gives rise. I cordially throw any influence I possess into the scale of those who are labouring to promote the total abolition of the custom among us, and I earnestly entreat all who think with me to exert their utmost efforts to stay the plague.” King James is dead, poor man, otherwise this worthy Dean, most assuredly, would soon have become a Bishop. How unfortunate a circumstance it is that wise men _will_ be born at a time when the generation who would have appreciated them most, is either extinct or in embryo. We remember to have once heard an equally estimable clerical gentleman declare that he thought those words of Longfellow’s very descriptive of the effects of his customary “whiff:”—— “And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day, Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.” With a fable of Krummacher’s, let this basket of fragments be filled, and finished— “The angel of sleep and the angel of death, fraternally embracing each other, wandered over the earth. It was eventide. They laid themselves down beside a hill not far from the habitations of men. A melancholy silence reigned around, and the evening bell of the distant hamlet had ceased. “Silently and quietly, as is their wont, the two kindly genii of the human race lay in confidential embrace, and night began to steal on. “Then the angel of sleep rose from his mossy couch, and threw around, with careful hand, the unseen grains of slumber. The evening wind bare them to the quiet dwellings of the wearied husbandmen. Now the feet of sleep embraced the inhabitants of the rural cots, from the hoary headed old man who supported himself on his staff, to the infants in the cradle. The sick forgot their pains, the mourners their griefs, and poverty its cares. All eyes were closed. “And now, after his task was done, the beautiful angel of sleep lay down again by the side of his sterner brother. When the morning dawn arose, he exclaimed in joyous innocency—‘Men praise me as their friend and benefactor. Oh what a bliss it is, unseen and secretly to befriend them! How happy are we, the invisible messengers of the good God! How lovely is our quiet vocation!’ “Thus spake the friendly angel of sleep. And the angel of death sighed in silent grief; and a tear, such as the immortals shed, trembled in his great dark eye. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘that I cannot as thou, delight myself with cheerful thanks. Men call me their enemy and pleasure spoiler.’