"If I were he, I'd much sooner take the sins for granted, and say to them, 'Now, my friends, I know you are all, ninety-nine out of the hundred of you, not such bad fellows at bottom, and would all like to be good, if you only knew how; so I'll tell you as far as I know, though I don't know much about the matter. For the truth is, you must have a hundred troubles every day which I never felt in my life; and it must be a very hard thing to keep body and soul together, and to get a little pleasure on this side the grave without making blackguards of yourselves. Therefore I don't pretend to set myself up as a better or a wiser man than you at all: but I do know a thing or two which I fancy may be useful to you. You can but try it. So come up, if you like, any of you, and talk matters over with me as between gentleman and gentleman. I shall keep your secret, of course; and if you find I can't cure your complaint, why, you can but go away and try elsewhere.'" "And so the doctor's model sermon ends in proposing private confession!" "Of course. The thing itself which will do them good, without the red rag of an official name, which sends them cackling off like frightened turkeys.--Such private confession as is going on between you and me now. Here am I confessing to you all my unorthodoxy." "And I my ignorance," said Frank; "for I really believe you know more about the matter than I do." "Not at all. I may be all wrong. But the fault of your cloth seems to me to be that they apply their medicines without deigning, most of them, to take the least diagnosis of the case. How could I cure a man without first examining what was the matter with him?" "So say the old casuists, of whom I have read enough--some would say too much; but they do not satisfy me. They deal with actions, and motives, and so forth; but they do not go down to the one root of wrong which is the same in every man." "You are getting beyond me: but why do you not apply a little of the worldly wisdom which these same casuists taught you?" "To tell you the truth, I have tried in past years, and found that the medicine would not act." "Humph! Well, that would depend, again, on the previous diagnosis of human nature being correct; and those old monks, I should say, would know about as much of human nature as so many daws in a steeple. Still, you wouldn't say that what was the matter with old Heale was the matter also with Vavasour?" "I believe from my heart that it is." "Humph! Then you know the symptoms of his complaint?" "I know that he never comes to church." "Nothing more? I am really speaking in confidence. You surely have heard of disagreements between him and Mrs. Vavasour?" "Never, I assure you; you shock me." "I am exceedingly sorry, then, that I said a word about it: but the whole parish talks of it," answered Tom, who was surprised at this fresh proof of the little confidence which Aberalva put in their parson.