XIX. A NEW DISEASE.

THERE is a disease of infants (and an infant disease, having scarcely as yet gotten a proper name in Latin) called the rickets; wherein the head waxeth too great, whilst the legs and lower parts wain too little. A woman in the west hath happily healed many, by cauterizing the vein behind the ear. How proper the remedy for the malady I engage not, experience ofttimes outdoing art, whilst we behold the cure easily effected, and the natural cause thereof hardly assigned.

Have not many now-a-days the same sickness in their souls? their heads swelling to a vast proportion, and they wonderfully enabled with knowledge to discourse? But, alas! how little their legs, poor their practice, and lazy their walking in a godly conversation! Shall I say that such may be cured by searing the vein in their head, not to hurt their hearing, but hinder the itching of their ears.

Indeed, his tongue deserves to be burnt that talks of searing the ears of others; for faith cometh by hearing. But I would have men not to hear few sermons, but hear more in hearing fewer sermons. Less preaching better heard (reader, lay the emphasis not on the word less, but on the word better) would make a wiser and stronger Christian, digesting the word from his heart to practise it in his conversation.