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Over-zealousness is an excess in saying or doing,—with good intentions, of course. The over-zealous man is one who gets up in public and engages to do things which he cannot perform. In cases where no doubt exists in the mind of anyone else, he raises some objection—only to be refuted.

At a banquet, he forces the servants to mix more wine than the guests can drink. If he sees two men in a quarrel, he strives to part them though he knows neither one. Leaving the main road he leads his friends upon a by-path and presently cannot find his way. He accosts his commander and inquires when he is going to draw up the troops for battle, and what orders he intends to issue for day after to-morrow.

He goes and tells his father that his mother is already asleep in her chamber. If the doctor gives instructions that no wine be given a patient, he administers “just a little,” on the plea that he wants to set the sufferer right. And when a woman dies, he has carved on the tombstone her husband’s name, and her father’s and her mother’s, along with the woman’s own name and her native place, and adds: “Worthy people, all of them.” In court, as he takes the oath, he remarks to the bystanders, “I have done this many a time before.”