And I do think it strange,
that if so much is doing for the lower classes, the working men, who form
the mass of the lower classes, are just those who scarcely feel the effects
of it; while the churches seem to be filled with children, and rich and
respectable, to the almost entire exclusion of the adult lower classes. A
strange religion this!" I went on, "and, to judge by its effects, a very
different one from that preached in Judea 1800 years ago, if we are to
believe the Gospel story."
"What on earth do you mean? Is not the Church of England the very purest
form of Apostolic Christianity?"
"It may be--and so may the other sects. But, somehow, in Judea, it was
the publicans and harlots who pressed into the kingdom of heaven; and it
was the common people who heard Christ gladly. Christianity, then, was a
movement in the hearts of the lower order. But now, my dear fellow, you
rich, who used to be told, in St. James's time, to weep and howl, have
turned the tables upon us poor. It is _you_ who are talking, all day long,
of converting _us_. Look at any place of worship you like, orthodox and
heretical.
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