UNMISTAKEABLE IDENTITY.
A Reverend Doctor in London was what is usually termed a popular preacher. His reputation, however, had been gained not by his drawing largely on his own stores of knowledge or eloquence, but by the skill with which he appropriated the thoughts and language of the great divines who had gone before him. With fashionable audiences, lightly versed in pulpit lore, he passed for a miracle of erudition and pathos. It did, for all that, once happen to him to be detected in his larcenies. One Sunday, as he was beginning to amaze and delight his admirers, a grave old gentleman seated himself close to the pulpit, and listened with close attention. The preacher had hardly finished his third sentence, before the old gentleman muttered, loud enough to be heard by those near, "That's Sherlock!" The Doctor frowned, but went on. He had not proceeded much further, when his tormentor broke out with, "That's Tillotson!" The Doctor bit his lips and paused, but, considering discretion the better part of valour, again proceeded. A third exclamation of "That's Blair!" however, was too much, and fairly deprived him of patience. Leaning over the pulpit, he cried, "Fellow, if you do not hold your tongue, you shall be turned out!" Without moving a muscle of his face, the grave old gentleman raised his head, and, looking the Doctor full in the face, retorted, "That's his own!"