Now, let me ask you one question.
Do you mean to condemn, just now, the Church as it was, or the Church as
it is, or the Church as it ought to be? Radicals have a habit of confusing
those three questions, as they have of confusing other things when it suits
them."
"Really," I said--for my blood was rising--"I do think that, with the
confessed enormous wealth of the clergy, the cathedral establishments
especially, they might do more for the people."
"Listen to me a little, Mr. Locke. The laity now-a-days take a pride in
speaking evil of the clergy, never seeing that if they are bad, the laity
have made them so. Why, what do you impute to them? Their worldliness,
their being like the world, like the laity round them--like you, in short?
Improve yourselves, and by so doing, if there is this sad tendency in the
clergy to imitate you, you will mend them; if you do not find that after
all, it is they who will have to mend you. 'As with the people, so with the
priest,' is the everlasting law. When, fifty years ago, all classes were
drunkards, from the statesman to the peasant, the clergy were drunken
also, but not half so bad as the laity.
Pages:
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481