We have often philosophised on the question of punishment, and, locally speaking, we have come to this conclusion, that agony would be sufficiently piled in any case of crime, if the delinquent were just hoisted to the top of St. Walburge's spire and left there.

But, after all, however much we may philosophise about sin or attempt to analyse its essence, there is some dark secret there, of which from time to time we are grievously conscious.

And why should one philosophise in a book that will never be read?