-destroying error,
dissociated from those baser sins which have no good repute even with the
worldly, it would be an argumentative luxury to get into close quarters with
him, and fight with a dialectic short-sword in the eyes of the Treby world
(sending also a written account thereof to the chief organs of dissenting
opinion). Vice was essentially stupid - a deaf and eyeless monster,
insusceptible to demonstration: the Spirit might work on it by unseen ways, and
the unstudied sallies of sermons were often as the arrows which pierced and
awakened the brutified conscience; but illuminated thought, finely-dividing
speech, were the choicer weapons of the divine armoury, which whoso could wield
must be careful not to leave idle.
    Here, then, was the longed-for opportunity. Here was an engagement - an
expression of a strong wish - on the part of Philip Debarry, if it were in his
power, to procure a satisfaction to Rufus Lyon. How had that man of God and
exemplary Independent minister, Mr Ainsworth, of persecuted sanctity, conducted
himself when a similar occasion had befallen him at Amsterdam? He had thought of
nothing but the glory of the highest cause, and had converted the offer of
recompense into a public debate with a Jew on the chief mysteries of the faith.
Here was a model: the case was nothing short of a heavenly indication, and he,
Rufus Lyon, would seize the occasion to demand a public debate with the rector
on the constitution of the true church.
    What if he were inwardly torn by doubt and anxiety concerning his own
private relations and the facts of his past life? That danger of absorption
within the narrow bounds of self only urged him the more towards action which
had a wider bearing, and might tell on the welfare of England at large. It was
decided. Before the minister went down to his breakfast that morning he had
written the following letter to Mr Philip Debarry:
 
        Sir, - Referring to your letter of yesterday, I find the following
        words: »I shall consider myself doubly fortunate if at any time you can
        point out to me some method by which I may procure you as lively a
        satisfaction as I am now feeling, in that full and speedy relief from
        anxiety which I owe to your considerate conduct.«
            I am not unaware, sir, that, in the usage of the world, there are
        words of courtesy (so called) which are understood, by those amongst
        whom they are current, to have no precise meaning, and to constitute no
        bond or obligation. I will not now insist that this is an abuse