"Having lived long," said Dr. Franklin, "I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but I found to be otherwise. It is, therefore, that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that whenever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication tells the pope that 'the only difference between our two churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England never in the wrong.' But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, 'I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.'" "I could never," says Sir Thomas Browne, "divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps, within a few days, I should dissent myself." "Whoever shall call to memory how many and many times he has been mistaken in his own judgment," says the great French essayist, "is he not a great fool if he does not ever after distrust it?" "Beware," said John Wesley, "of forming a hasty judgment. There are secrets which few but God are acquainted with. Some years since I told a gentleman, 'Sir, I am afraid you are covetous.' He asked me, 'What is the reason of your fears?' I answered, 'A year ago, when I made a collection for the expense of repairing the Foundry, you subscribed five guineas. At the subscription made this year you subscribed only half a guinea.' He made no reply; but after a time asked, 'Pray, sir, answer me a question. Why do you live upon potatoes?' (I did so between three and four years.) I replied, 'It has much conduced to my health.' He answered, 'I believe it has. But did you not do it likewise to save money?' I said, 'I did, for what I save from my own meat will feed another that else would have none.' 'But, sir,' said he, 'if this be your motive, you may save much more. I know a man that goes to the market at the beginning of each week. There he buys a pennyworth of parsnips, which he boils in a large quantity of water. The parsnips serve him for food, and the water for drink, the ensuing week, so his meat and drink together cost him only a penny a week.' This he constantly did, though he had then two hundred pounds a year, to pay the debts which he had contracted before he knew God! And this was he I had set down for a covetous man." "We shall have two wonders in heaven," said the wise and gentle Tillotson; "the one, how many come to be absent whom we expected to find there; the other, how many are there whom we had no hope of meeting." There is significance in the epitaph by Steele, in The Spectator: "Here lieth R. C., in expectation of the last day. What sort of a man he was that day will discover."