76 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



rewarded for doing that which you are ashamed of 

 doing, and for attempting to deceive a true friend." 



" I'm not ashamed o' smoking," he answered ; " but 

 they do say as parsons hates it." 



" Cruelly, despitefully, and with lying lips, Michael. 

 With the exception of a very small company, not con- 

 spicuous for liberality or learning, the English clergy 

 have never spoken against the moderate use of tobacco. 

 The majority of them, smokers themselves, would be 

 hypocrites to do so ; and of the remainder, they who 

 go much among the very poor, and know how few 

 their comforts, how many their hardships, must be 

 glad to see the enjoyment (not the abuse) of a cheap 

 and innocuous pleasure. They who denounce it must 

 give up all their luxuries, and nearly all their comfortsi 

 before they can do so consistently ; and then, Michael, 

 we will argue the matter on the principles of religion 

 and common-sense. We have smoked our pipes for 

 three hundred years in England, beginning with a 

 walnut for a bowl and a straw for a tube ; and though 

 a king has blown his " Counter-blast against Tobacco," 

 and yellow Puritans have groaned and snarled at it, 

 it still brings pleasant solace, throughout the land 

 and under it to the miner toiling for the coal, and 

 to him who sits by the coal-fire's blaze ; and leaves 

 men as brave and as good, Michael, as when Ealeigh, 

 or whoever first brought the plant among us, was as 

 yet unborn. So I finished my little sermon ; and my 

 friend Joseph knows why I have ventured to repeat it 

 here." 



" There's another little sermon, sir," said Mr. 

 Oldacre, "upon tobacco and the pipe, which rescues 



