is made before we are matured by years or study.  Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter it without some stock of knowledge to balance the account perpetually betwixt you, the trade drops at once; and this is the reason, however it may be boasted to the contrary, why travellers have so little (especially good) conversation with the natives, owing to their suspicion, or perhaps conviction, that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation of young itinerants worth the trouble of their bad language, or the interruption of their visits.”

Very true, no doubt, and excellently well put; but we seem to have got some distance, in spirit at any rate, from Luke xv. 13; and it is with somewhat too visible effect, perhaps, that Sterne forces his way back into the orthodox routes of pulpit disquisition.  The youth, disappointed with his reception by “the literati,” &c., seeks “an easier society; and as bad company is always ready, and ever lying in wait, the career is soon finished, and the poor prodigal returns—­the same object of pity with the prodigal in the Gospel.”  Hardly a good enough “tag,” perhaps, to reconcile the ear to the “And now to,” &c., as a fitting close to this pointed little essay in the style of the Chesterfield Letters.  There is much internal evidence to show that this so-called sermon was written either after Sterne’s visit to or during his stay in France; and there is strong reason, I think, to suppose that it was in reality neither intended for a sermon nor actually delivered from the pulpit.

No other of his sermons has quite so much vivacity as this.  But in the famous discourse upon an unlucky text—­the sermon preached at the chapel of the English Embassy, in Paris—­there are touches of unclerical raillery not a few.  Thus:  “What a noise,” he exclaims, “among the simulants of the various virtues!...  Behold Humility, become so out of mere pride; Chastity, never once in harm’s way; and Courage, like a Spanish soldier upon an Italian stage—­a bladder full of wind.  Hush! the sound of that trumpet!  Let not my soldier run!’ tis some good Christian giving alms.  O Pity, thou gentlest of human passions! soft and tender are thy notes, and ill accord they with so loud an instrument.”

Here, again, is a somewhat bold saying for a divine:  “But, to avoid all commonplace cant as much as I can on this head, I will forbear to say, because I do not think, that ’tis a breach of Christian charity to think or speak ill of our neighbour.  We cannot avoid it:  our opinion must follow the evidence,” &c.  And a little later on, commenting on the insinuation conveyed in Satan’s question, “Does Job serve God for nought?” he says:  “It is a bad picture, and done by a terrible master; and yet we are always copying it.  Does a man from real conviction of heart forsake his vices?  The position is not to be allowed.  No; his vices have forsaken him.  Does a pure virgin fear God, and say her prayers?  She is in her climacteric?