346 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



working, till the rude unshapen ideas, like the broken 

 fragments of rock, are rounded and polished, and display 

 all their peculiarities of texture, and all their shades of 

 colour. 



'After all and I speak from experience controversy, 

 though often a necessary evil, is invariably a great one. 

 Never in all my life did I sin so grievously against my 

 neighbour and my own better feelings, as when battling 

 about two years ago for my towns-folks and myself in 

 the affair of the chapel, and this, though my own con- 

 science, and the best people I knew, assured me I was 

 in the right 



' You must surely have admired in the Paradise 

 Lost, that expansiveness of moral prospect (if I may so 

 speak) which the poet has spread out before his readers. 

 The work resembles a lofty range of terraces rising one 

 above the other, and the grand object to be contem- 

 plated from each of these is the Pall. In our ascent 

 upwards we first use the terrace of human nature, and 

 turn towards the object. It is too near, and too much 

 on a level with us, to be descried other than imperfectly. 

 We see it only as a thing of sin and suffering originating 

 in a sceptical disobedience and the wild impulses of a 

 blind desire. We ascend to the second terrace (it is 

 the place of the fiends) and look down ; the object appears 

 in a clearer light, we see it as the result of deep 

 crooked design and a malice as artful as profound. We 

 then ascend to the top eminence ; it is occupied by the 

 throne of Deity ; the prospect spreads out before us in 

 all its completeness. We see the blind impulse destined 

 and directed by an unerring agent, the little crooked 

 design forming part of a plan as extensive as 'tis faultless, 

 infinite wisdom making use of folly as one of its means, 

 and infinite goodness effecting its purposes by hatred 



