"You draw a dark picture, Mr Allcraft, slightly tinged, I trust, with the poetic pencil. But be it as gloomy as you paint it, we have still religion amongst us, and individuals who adapt their conduct to its principles"--
"Ay, madam," said Michael, quickly interrupting her, "I grant you all you wish. If we did but adapt our conduct to the doctrines of the Testament--to that unequalled humanizing moral code--if we were taught to do this, and how to do it, we might hope for some amendment. But look at the actual state of things. The religious world is but a portion of the whole--a world within a world. Preachers of peace--men who arrogate to themselves the divine right of inculcating truth, and who, if any, should be free from the corruption that taints the social atmosphere,--such men come before mankind already sick with warfare, widening the breaches, subdividing our divisions. Are these men pure and single-minded? Are these men free from the grasping itch that distinguishes our age? Is there no such thing as trafficking with souls? Are chapels bought and sold only with a spiritual view, or sometimes as men bargain for their theatres? Are these men really messengers of peace, living in amity and union, acting Christianity as well as preaching it? Ask the Papist, the Protestant, the Independent, and the thousand sects who dwell apart as foes, and, whilst they talk of love, are teaching mankind how to hate beneath the garb of sanctimoniousness and hollow forms!"
"You are eloquent, Mr Allcraft, in a bad cause."
"Pardon me, Mrs Mildred," answered the passionate youth immediately, and with much bitterness, "but in the next street you shall find one eloquent in a worse. There is what some of us are pleased to call a popular preacher there. I speak the plain and simple truth, and say he is a hireling--a paid actor, without the credit that attaches to the open exercise of an honourable profession. The owner of the chapel is a usurer, or money-lender--no speculation answers so well as this snug property. The ranter exhibits to his audience once a-week--the place is crowded when he appears upon the stage--deserted when he is absent, and his place is occupied by one who fears, perhaps, to tamper with his God--is humble, honest, quiet. The crowds who throng to listen to the one, and will not hear the other, profess to worship God in what they dare to call _his_ sanctuary, and look with pity on such as have not courage to unite in all their hideous mockery."