A CONVERT, AND A HERETIC. 43 



men work who feel justly proud of their com- 

 mander: he had arrived at the highest summit 

 of his profession. He returned to them with double 

 authority and importance ; and the drainage of 

 my first field was soon accomplished : not as deeply, 

 indeed as we now call deeply; but deep enough, 

 after the ridges had been twice cast, to allow Exall 

 and Andrews' subsoiler to follow the cross-plowing 

 a year afterward, and break to pieces as obdurate a 

 hearthpan as ever resisted the root of an oak. 



" After the ridges had been twice cast : " how 

 easy it looks in print ! What a pretty little Example- 

 farm would England and what would not Ireland 

 be, if the Press could thus cultivate and civilize ! 

 if ploughs were printers' types and fields were pa- 

 per if bogs and fens and marshes could be drained 

 like inkpots, and every drop that falls from Heaven 

 from which there falls not a drop NO! NOT ONE 

 DROP too much or too little were apportioned 

 to its proper place and task. It falls upon its 

 proper place, and under that place lies its task, 

 would but Man believe and act upon the hint, and 

 do his part, his gloriously privileged part, in carry- 

 ing out, for his own benefit, the purposes of perfect 

 Wisdom the indications of an ever-suggestive 

 Handy-work 



