In his discourses he sometimes came out with a queer bit of erudition.

Such as, while it edified one portion of his congregation, filled the other with unfeigned amazement.
'We may pray for rain,' said he on one occasion, when the collect had been read; 'and for other elemental influence with humble confidence.
For if it be true, as the Roman annalists relate, that their augurs could, by certain rites and imprecations, produce thunder-storms--if it be certain that thunder and lightning were successfully invoked by King Porsenna, and as Lucius Piso, whom Pliny calls a very respectable author, avers that the same thing had frequently been done before his time by King Numa Pompilius, surely it is not presumption in a Christian congregation,' and so forth.
On this occasion he warned his parishioners against assuming that sudden death is a judgment.

'On the contrary, the ancients held it a blessing; and Pliny declares it to be the greatest happiness of life--how much more should we?
Many of the Roman worthies, as you are aware, perished thus suddenly, Quintius AEmilius Lepidus, going out of his house, struck his great toe against the threshold and expired; Cneius Babius Pamphilus, a man of praetorian rank, died while asking a boy what o'clock it was; Aulus Manlius Torquatus, a gentleman of consular rank, died in the act of taking a cheese-cake at dinner; Lucius Tuscius Valla, the physician, deceased while taking a draught of mulsum; Appius Saufeius, while swallowing an egg: and Cornelius Gallus, the praetor, and Titus Haterius, a knight, each died while kissing the hand of his wife.

And I might add many more names with which, no doubt, you are equally familiar.' The gentlemen of the household opened their eyes; the officers of the Royal Irish Artillery, who understood their man, winked pleasantly behind their cocked hats at one another; and his excellency coughed, with his perfumed pocket-handkerchief to his nose, a good deal; and Master Dicky Sturk, a grave boy, who had a side view of his excellency, told his nurse that the lord lieutenant laughed in church! and was rebuked for that scandalum magnatum with proper horror.
Then the good doctor told them that the blood of the murdered man cried to heaven.

That they might comfort themselves with the assurance that the man of blood would come to judgment.