THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 49 



the result of practice, whence they may learn to judge 

 of causes by their effects. One practical lesson is 

 worth all that could be conveyed to them through the 

 eloquence of a Cicero. 



The following anecdote may serve to illustrate the 

 benefit of practical explanation in favour of moral argu- 

 ment. I was told it as a true story, but may use the 

 hacl^neyed quotation : — 



" I know not how the truth may be, 

 I tell it as 'twas told to me." 



A clergyman in a country church had been, in the 

 course of his sermon, expounding on the nature of 

 miracles. No sooner had the service ended than one of 

 his congregation, a bluff farmer, approached him, and 

 begged to thank him for much that he had learned in 

 attending to his discourse, but hoped that his reverence 

 would pardon his asking for some further elucidation of 

 the meaning of a miracle ; nothing that he had then 

 heard having tended to enlighten his ignorance of the 

 nature of such an occurrence. 



The divine immediately assented, requesting the 

 farmer to wait in the porch till the congregation had 

 dispersed. In the porch accordingly did Giles station 

 himself, happy in the hope of a solution of such a mystery, 

 and was sedulously watching the departure of the last 

 loiterers in the churchyard, when he was literally "taken 

 all aback," by a tremendous salute in the rear from the 

 well-directed and vigorously applied foot of the pastor, 



4 



