were provoked by the
touch-not, taste-not, handle-not precepts of their rulers, into questioning much
that they would otherwise have unhesitatingly accepted.
    One sad story is on record about a young man of promising amiable
disposition, but cursed with more conscience than brains, who had been told by
his doctor (for as I have above said disease was not yet held to be criminal)
that he ought to eat meat, law or no law. He was much shocked and for some time
refused to comply with what he deemed the unrighteous advice given him by his
doctor; at last, however, finding that he grew weaker and weaker, he stole
secretly on a dark night into one of those dens in which meat was
surreptitiously sold, and bought a pound of prime steak. He took it home, cooked
it in his bedroom when every one in the house had gone to rest, ate it, and
though he could hardly sleep for remorse and shame, felt so much better next
morning that he hardly knew himself.
    Three or four days later, he again found himself irresistibly drawn to this
same den. Again he bought a pound of steak, again he cooked and ate it, and
again, in spite of much mental torture, on the following morning felt himself a
different man. To cut the story short, though he never went beyond the bounds of
moderation, it preyed upon his mind that he should be drifting, as he certainly
was, into the ranks of the habitual law-breakers.
    All the time his health kept on improving, and though he felt sure that he
owed this to the beefsteaks, the better he became in body, the more his
conscience gave him no rest; two voices were for ever ringing in his ears - the
one saying, »I am Common Sense and Nature; heed me, and I will reward you as I
rewarded your fathers before you.« But the other voice said: »Let not that
plausible spirit lure you to your ruin. I am Duty; heed me, and I will reward
you as I rewarded your fathers before you.«
    Sometimes he even seemed to see the faces of the speakers. Common Sense
looked so easy, genial, and serene, so frank and fearless, that do what he might
he could not mistrust her; but as he was on the point of following her, he would
be checked by the austere face of Duty, so grave, but yet so kindly; and it cut
him to the heart that from time to time he should see her turn pitying away from
him