Mr. Horsman, struggling against every
kind of temporizing and trickery, has to do the work which bishops, by
virtue of their seat in the House of Lords, ought to have been doing years
ago. Everywhere we see the clergy, with a few persecuted exceptions (like
Dr. Arnold), proclaiming themselves the advocates of Toryism, the dogged
opponents of our political liberty, living either by the accursed system of
pew-rents, or else by one which depends on the high price of corn; chosen
exclusively from the classes who crush us down; prohibiting all free
discussion on religious points; commanding us to swallow down, with faith
as passive and implicit as that of a Papist, the very creeds from which
their own bad example, and their scandalous neglect, have, in the last
three generations, alienated us; never mixing with the thoughtful working
men, except in the prison, the hospital, or in extreme old age; betraying,
in every tract, in every sermon, an ignorance of the doubts, the feelings,
the very language of the masses, which would be ludicrous, were it not
accursed before God and man.
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