God's curse
is on them, and on those who, by supporting them, are partakers of their
sins. Above all, let no clergyman deal at them. Poverty--and many clergymen
are poor--doubly poor, because society often requires them to keep up the
dress of gentlemen on the income of an artizan; because, too, the demands
on their charity are quadruple those of any other class--yet poverty is no
excuse. The thing is damnable--not Christianity only, but common humanity
cries out against it. Woe to those who dare to outrage in private the
principles which they preach in public! God is not mocked; and his curse
will find out the priest at the altar, as well as the nobleman in his
castle.
But it is so hard to deprive the public of the luxury of cheap clothes!
Then let the public look out for some other means of procuring that
priceless blessing. If that, on experiment, be found impossible--if the
comfort of the few be for ever to be bought by the misery of the many--if
civilization is to benefit every one except the producing class--then this
world is truly the devil's world, and the sooner so ill-constructed and
infernal a machine is destroyed by that personage, the better.
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