and the holy law of obedience. He therefore only ordained that the tiler should remain in the air to await fresh orders, and ran to report the state of things to his Prior. The Prior gave him absolution for the sin which he had committed in beginning a miracle without permission, and allowed him to finish it, provided he ended there, and did not repeat the practice."
And, in a vein equally likely to conciliate the clergy, he thus speaks "of Fanaticism:"—
"Some one spreads a rumour in the world that there is a giant in existence 70 feet high. Very soon all the doctors discuss the questions what colour his hair must be, what is the size of his thumb, what the dimensions of his nails; there is outcry, caballing, fighting; those who maintain that the giant's little finger is only an inch and a half in diameter, bring those to the stake who affirm that the little finger is a foot thick. 'But, gentlemen, does your giant exist?' says a bystander, modestly. 'What a horrible doubt!' cry all the disputants; 'what blasphemy! what absurdity!' Then they all make a little truce to stone the bystander, and, after having assassinated him in due form, in a manner the most edifying, they fight among themselves, as before, on the subject of the little finger and the nails."
