So the idle story goes, but we hesitate not to say that it originates in the vindictive malice of some concealed enemy, who envies the gentleman in question his pure and unsullied reputation.

We would not ourselves advert to it at all, but that we hope it may meet his eye, and prompt him to take the earliest measures to contradict and refute it, as we are certain he will and can do.' "This was all exceedingly kind, and certainly so very charitable that the Equivocal could not, with any claim to Christian principles, suffer itself to be outdone in that blessed spirit of brotherly love and forgiveness, which, it trusted, always characterized its pages.
"'We are delighted,' it said, 'at the mild and benevolent tone in which, under the common misconception, a little anecdote, simple and harmless in itself, was uttered.

Indeed, we smiled--but we trust the smile was that of a Christian--on hearing our respected and respectable contemporary doling out the mistake of a child, with such an air of solemn interest in the reputation of a gentleman whose name and character are beyond the reach of either calumny or envy.

The harmless misconception on which, by a chance expression, the silly rumor was founded, is known to all the friends of the gentleman in question.

He himself, however, being one of those deep-feeling Christians, who are not insensible to the means which often resorted to, for wise purposes, in order to try us and prove our faith, is far from looking on the mistake--as, in the weakness of their own strength, many would as a thing to be despised and contemned.