A CONVERT, AND A HERETIC. 23 



who feel justly proud of their commander : he had 

 arrived at the highest summit of his profession. He 

 returned to them with double authority and import- 

 ance ; 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-ploughing a year afterwards, and 

 break to pieces as obdurate a hearthpan as ever re- 

 sisted 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 civilise ! if 

 ploughs were printers' types, and fields were paper 

 if bogs and fens and marshes could be drained like 

 inkpots, and every drop that falls from Heaven 

 from which there falls not one 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 carrying out, for 

 his own benefit, the purposes of perfect Wisdom, 

 the indications of an ever-suggestive Handy-work. 



