, and he said that Jonas
Parker was his fellow-traveller, and he further said that a
Mr. Longley was his employer, who promised to bear him out." We
were the men that were gliding northward, this Sept. 1st, 1839,
with still team, and rigging not the most convenient to carry
barrels, unquestioned by any Squire or Church Deacon and ready to
bear ourselves out if need were. In the latter part of the
seventeenth century, according to the historian of Dunstable,
"Towns were directed to erect '_a cage_' near the meeting-house,
and in this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath
were confined." Society has relaxed a little from its
strictness, one would say, but I presume that there is not less
_religion_ than formerly. If the _ligature_ is found to be
loosened in one part, it is only drawn the tighter in another.
You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must
content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science
is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The
geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that
fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove
that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.
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