So every one listened--at first with curiosity, afterwards with
something like amazement. The bishop abandoned his expression of gentle
tolerance for one of manifest uneasiness. It seemed scarcely credible
that he heard aright. For the Marquis of Arranmore's forefinger was
stretched out towards him--a gesture at once relentless and scornful,
and the words to which he was forced to listen were not pleasant ones to
hear.
"It is such sentiments as these," the Marquis of Arranmore was
saying--and his words came like drops of ice, slow and distinct--"such
sentiments as these voiced by such men as the Lord Bishop of Beeston in
such high places as this where we are now assembled, which have created
and nourished our criminal classes, which have filled our prisons and
our workhouses, and in time future if his lordship's theology is correct
will people Hell. And as for the logic of it, was ever the intelligence
of so learned and august a body of listeners so insulted before? Is
charity, then, for the deserving and the deserving only? Are we to put
a premium upon hypocrisy, to pass by on the other side from those who
have fallen, and who by themselves have no power to rise? This is
precisely his lordship's proposition.
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