For its promotion, the eminent man
wished to conciliate the sympathies of a certain small class of
religionists. He procured an introduction to a leading man among
them,--a good, but very stupid and self-conceited man. This man
entered into talk with the eminent foreigner, and ranged over a
multitude of topics, political and religious. And at an hour's end
the foreigner was astonished by the good, but stupid man suddenly
exclaiming,--"Now, Sir, I have been reckoning you up: you won't do:
you are a"--no matter what. It was something that had nothing earthly
to do with the end to be promoted. The religious demagogue had been
trotting out the foreigner; and he had found him unsound. The
religious demagogue belonged to a petty dissenting sect, no doubt; and
he was trying for his wretched little Shibboleth. But you may have
seen the like, even with leading men in National Churches. And I have
seen a pert little whipper-snapper ask a venerable clergyman what he
thought of a certain outrageous lay-preacher, and receive the
clergyman's reply, that he thought most unfavorably of many of the
lay-preacher's doings, with a self-conceited smirk that seemed to say
to the venerable clergyman, "I have been reckoning _you_ up: you
won't do.
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