for how often does the Body appropriate what was meant for the Cloth only!  Whoso would avoid falsehood, which is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps see good to take a different course.  That reverence which cannot act without obstruction and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have free course when they are empty.  Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the Pagoda is not less sacred than the God; so do I too worship the hollow cloth Garment with equal fervor, as when it contained the Man:  nay, with more, for I now fear no deception, of myself or of others.

“Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, John Baliol, reign long over Scotland; the man John Baliol being quite gone, and only the ’Toom Tabard’ (Empty Gown) remaining?  What still dignity dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes!  How meekly it bears its honors!  No haughty looks, no scornful gesture:  silent and serene, it fronts the world; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it.  The Hat still carries the physiognomy of its Head:  but the vanity and the stupidity, and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone.  The Coat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike; the Breeches, in modest simplicity, depend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow; the Waistcoat hides no evil passion, no riotous desire; hunger or thirst now dwells not in it.  Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the carking cares and foul vices of the World; and rides there, on its Clothes-horse; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or purified Apparition, visiting our low Earth.

“Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of Civilized Life, the Capital of England; and meditated, and questioned Destiny, under that ink-sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan broth; and was one lone soul amid those grinding millions;—­often have I turned into their Old-Clothes Market to worship.  With awe-struck heart I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through a Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts.  Silent are they, but expressive in their silence:  the past witnesses and instruments of Woe and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in ‘the Prison men call Life.’  Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are not venerable.  Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded Jewish High-priest, who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom, summons them from the four winds!  On his head, like the Pope, he has three Hats,—­a real triple tiara; on either hand are the similitude of wings, whereon the summoned Garments come to alight; and ever, as he slowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep fateful note, as if through a trumpet he were proclaiming:  ‘Ghosts of Life, come to Judgment!’ Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts:  he will purify you in his Purgatory, with fire and with water; and, one day, new-created ye shall reappear.  Oh, let him in whom the flame of Devotion is ready to