In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant.  We forget that weakness is not in itself a sin.  We forget that even cowardice may call for our most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate infirmity, Who of us does not look with great tenderness on the young chieftain in the “Fair Maid of Perth,” when he confesses his want of courage?  All of us love companionship and sympathy; some of us may love them too much.  All of us are more or less imaginative in our theology.

Some of us may find the aid of material symbols a comfort, if not a necessity.  The boldest thinker may have his moments of languor and discouragement, when he feels as if he could willingly exchange faiths with the old beldame crossing herself at the cathedral-door,—­nay, that, if he could drop all coherent thought, and lie in the flowery meadow with the brown-eyed solemnly unthinking cattle, looking up to the sky, and all their simple consciousness staining itself blue, then down to the grass, and life turning to a mere greenness, blended with confused scents of herbs,—­no individual mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the great calm cattle-sense of all time and all places that know the milky smell of herds,—­if he could be like these, he would be content to be driven home by the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of ancient Babylon.  Let us be very generous, then, in our judgment of those who leave the front ranks of thought for the company of the meek non-combatants who follow with the baggage and provisions.  Age, illness, too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us to this pass.  But while we can think and maintain the rights of our own individuality against every human combination, let us not forget to caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice which is criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to indulge.  God help him, over whose dead soul in his living body must be uttered the sad supplication, Requiescat in pace!

A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather’s study door called his eyes from the book on which they were intent.  He looked up, as if expecting a welcome guest.

The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., entered the study of the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather.  He was not the expected guest.  Mr. Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer, and pushed in the drawer.  He slid something which rattled under a paper lying on the table.  He rose with a slight change of color, and welcomed, a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor.

“Good-evening, Brother Fairweather!” said the Reverend Doctor, in a very cordial, good-humored way.  “I hope I am not spoiling one of those eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear.”

“Not at all, not at all,” the younger clergyman answered, in a languid tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which belonged to it,—­the vocal expression which we meet with now and then, and which says as plainly as so many words could say it, “I am a suffering individual.  I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and imposed upon by mankind and the powers of the universe generally.  But I endure all.  I endure you.  Speak.  I listen.  It is a burden to me, but I even approve.  I sacrifice myself.  Behold this movement of my lips!  It is a smile.”