Now there existed in Littlebath at this time a weekly periodical called the Christian Examiner, with which Mr Maguire had for some time had dealings. He had written for the paper, taking an earnest part in local religious subjects; and the paper, in return, had very frequently spoken highly of Mr Maguire’s eloquence, and of Mr Maguire’s energy. There had been a give and take in this, which all people understand who are conversant with the provincial, or perhaps I might add, with the metropolitan press of the country. The paper in question was not a wicked paper, nor were the gentlemen concerned in its publication intentionally scurrilous or malignant; but it was subject to those great temptations which beset all class newspapers of the kind, and to avoid which seems to be almost more difficult, in handling religious subjects, than in handling any other. The editor of a Christian Examiner, if, as is probable, he have, of his own, very strong and one-sided religious convictions, will think that those who differ from him are in a perilous way, and so thinking, will feel himself bound to tell them so. The man who advocates one line of railway instead of another, or one prime minister as being superior to all others, does not regard his opponents as being fatally wrong,—wrong for this world and for the next,—and he can restrain himself. But how is a newspaper writer to restrain himself when his opponent is incurring everlasting punishment, or, worse still, carrying away others to a similar doom, in that they read, and perhaps even purchase, that which the lost one has written? In this way the contents of religious newspapers are apt to be personal; and heavy, biting, scorching attacks, become the natural vehicle of Christian Examiners.

Mr Maguire sat down and wrote his leading article, which on the following Saturday appeared in all the glory of large type. The article shall not be repeated here at length, because it contained sundry quotations from Holy Writ which may as well be omitted, but the purport of it shall be explained. It commenced with a dissertation against an undue love of wealth,—the auri sacra fames, as the writer called it; and described with powerful unction the terrible straits into which, when indulged, it led the vile, wicked, ugly, hideous, loathsome, devilish human heart. Then there was an eloquent passage referring to worms and dust and grass, and a quotation respecting treasures both corruptible and incorruptible. Not at once, but with crafty gradations, the author sloped away to the point of his subject. How fearful was it to watch the way in which the strong, wicked ones,—the roaring lions of the earth, beguiled the ignorance of the innocent, and led lonely lambs into their slaughter-houses. All this, much amplified, made up half the article; and then, after the manner of a pleasant relater of anecdotes, the clerical story-teller began his little tale. When, however, he came to the absolute writing of the tale, he found it to be prudent for the present to omit the names of his hero and heroine—to omit, indeed, the names of all the persons concerned. He had first intended boldly to dare it all, and perhaps would yet have done so had he been quite sure of his editor. But his editor he found might object to these direct personalities at the first sound of the trumpet, unless the communication were made in the guise of a letter, with Mr Maguire’s name at the end of it. After a while the editor might become hot in the fight himself, and then the names could be blazoned forth. And there existed some chance,—some small chance,—that the robber-lion, John Ball, might be induced to drop his lamb from his mouth when he heard this premonitory blast, and then the lion’s prey might be picked up by—“the bold hunter,” Mr Maguire would probably have said, had he been called upon to finish the sentence himself; anyone else might, perhaps, say, by the jackal. The little story was told, therefore, without the mention of any names. Mr Maguire had read other little stories told in another way in other newspapers, of greater weight, no doubt, than the Littlebath Christian Examiner, and had thought that he could wield a thunderbolt as well as any other Jupiter; but in wielding thunderbolts, as in all other operations of skill, a man must first try his ‘prentice hand with some reticence; and thus he reconciled himself to prudence, not without some pangs of conscience which accused him inwardly of cowardice.