know it could not have the slightest effect to stop it. He runs his head plump against a stone wall, when he ought to expect nothing for it but a broken skull. He calls the world mad, in a way and under circumstances that, if he had an ounce of discretion, he would see could not possibly result in any thing else than the world returning the compliment by a vote so overwhelming as to leave him in a minority of one and then because the world does outvote him, he likens himself to Luther, St. Paul, and even to Him of whom the Jews and His own kindred said He had a Devil, and was beside Himself. But Crooke Racket is a fool; and a reformer has no business to be a fool: only there is no law of the land against it-none but the law of the moral universe, that if a man will be a fool, he must take the consequences."

"How many men of great parts does egotism spoil for true reformers and good martyrs.”

CHAPTER XVI.

LOT'S HOUSE IN SODOM.-JONAH IN NEW YORK. THE DOCTOR VILIFIES UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND AN ELECTIVE JUDICIARY IN A VERY SHOCKING WAY; AND MAKES THE MOST UNSUPPOSABLE SUPPOSITIONS.-AN EXTRAORDINARY TICKET FOR CITY OFFICERS.

"MY DEAR," said the Doctor one evening, looking across the table to his wife, who was at the moment absorbed in a volume of Macaulay's History, "can you tell me the street and number of Lot's house in Sodom?"

"Bless me, husband, what makes you ask that question?" said Mrs. Oldham.

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Why, my dear, I have just been writing the address on my letter to your brother John, and I perceive I have directed it to West Twenty-First street, Sodom, and that made me think of Lot, and how near neighbors he and your brother might be."

"I think, mother," said Phil, whose attention was drawn by this talk from the page of Chitty he

was poring over, "you ought solemnly to remind my father that Lot is dead, and therefore he and Uncle John can't possibly be neighbors."

Phil was an incipient lawyer and a presumptive judge-but at present much given to setting small witticisms on the back of other people's remarks. "Phil is like the celebrated Fox," said the Doctor.

"I am glad it's not the celebrated Goose," said Phil in an undertone. "I confess to being unsound on that."

Or the celebrated somebody else," continued the Doctor, not heeding the interruption, "of whom the great Pitt or the witty Sheridan—I shall not decide which-said he drew on his imagination for his facts and on his memory for his wit. Phil's draft on his memory in this case, however, is a good one. Charles Lamb's four Scotchmen, springing up at once to set him right as to the unreasonableness of wishing for Burns's presence at the dinner-table, instead of his son's, is one of Lamb's characteristic and exquisite touches of humor. If his Scotchmen were here, Phil, they would perhaps have reminded me not only that Lot is dead, but also that he moved out of Sodom some

time before his death, and before your Uncle John moved in."

"But let me look at your letter, husband," said Mrs. Oldham.

He handed it to her.

"I see," said she, "you have got it down in your largest letters. It all comes from your always calling New York Sodom. Are you not ashamed to give such an ill name to my native place?"

"Father's bump of veneration is not large," said Phil; "you ought not, mother, to be hurt at any thing he says. He has been heard to speak very disrespectfully of his own native place; and I shouldn't be surprised to hear him call the capital of his country Tophet."

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Humph,—draft on Sidney Smith this time,” said the Doctor. "But touching your native town, Mrs. Oldham, you have done it a great deal too much honor by being born there-though it was not then the Sodom it is now. It is a great consolation to me that you are so much better than your native place. It is not worthy of you; and it has no proper appreciation of your worth. You are naturally unable to think ill of any body or any thing, and like all such good and kind-hearted persons as you are, you have, no doubt, many tender

memories of the scenes of your early years: and so, I sometimes think you are not quite thankful enough for the privilege of being out of that bad place."

"I am sure, husband, I don't wish to go back there to live," said Mrs. Oldham.

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I am heartily glad of it, my dear,” replied the Doctor. "I should be inconsolably afflicted, if it were otherwise. If indeed it were possible-I know it is not, and I put it merely as a monstrous supposition that you could desert your husband and go down there to live, after being once fairly out of the place, I should be filled with the most distressing apprehensions. It would imply in fact an awful change in your nature, and would justify the worst forebodings. Why, Lot's wife would be a model woman compared with you. never once set foot in Sodom after she left it with Lot. Could not stir to go back-do you say There is no proof she wanted to go back, or would have done so if she had not been stiffened into a pillar of salt. Looked back-did she? Well, what of that?

She

?

That don't begin to prove that she wanted to go back, or would have tried to go if she had not been so fast fixed. It only proves that she wanted to get a glimpse of Sodom, merely