Nor is this all, they say, 'that the bones, if again boiled for a _still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea soup.' This is the system and this the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned by the Bishops of London and Chester. In piety nevertheless these prelates are not found wanting. They may starve the bodies but no one can charge them with neglecting the souls of our 'independent labourers.' Nothing can exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the spiritually destitute. They raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces, to proclaim and lament over the spiritual destitution which so extensively prevails--but they seldom condescend to notice _physical_ destitution. When the cry of famine rings throughout the land they coolly recommend rapid church extension, thus literally offering stone to those who ask them for bread. To get the substantial and give the spiritual is their practical Christianity. To spiritualise the poor into contentment with the 'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to die of hunger rather than demand relief, are their darling objects. Verily, if these and men like these do not grind the faces of the poor, the Author of this Apology is unable to conceive in what that peculiar process consists. In Scripture we are told, the bread of the poor is his life, and they who defraud him thereof are men of blood; and by whom are the poor defrauded of their bread if not by those who, like the Bishops of London and Chester, legislate for poverty as if it were a crime, and lend theft sanction to a system which, while it necessitates the wholesale pinching and screwing even in the commonest necessaries of life 'of independent labourers,' does also necessitate the wholesale starvation of still more wretched paupers? Formerly our 'surplus populations' were 'killed off' by bullet and sabre, now they are got rid of in Poor Law Unions by a process less expensive perhaps, but not less effectual. Did Atheists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of trees by their fruit, except the tree called Christianity. Their great 'prophet' argued that if the tree is good the fruit will be good; but when their own religion is in question they give such argument the slip. The vices of the Atheist they ascribe to his creed. The vices of the Christian to anything but his creed. Let professors of Christianity be convicted of gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not Christians. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of Christianity coolly assures us such conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion--moss which grows on the stock of his piety.