“Therefore your heart is not of the deepest black of all. But what has been your only alternative? Leading your people to think that no sanctity exists.” “That is the fault of the system,—not mine. The system made it a matter of course that I should be a clergyman. Here I am. I must either set my face at its full length, and play a damned deep part when I talk of righteousness, and temperance, and——and all that—-” “And judgment to come,” said Richard, gravely. “Or, if the people see I am thinking of anything but what I am saying, they can hardly believe that such threats signify much. You should lay the blame on those that put me into the church.” “They would plead that you were put there as a matter of course;—that you were born to it. They would refer the blame farther back; where, indeed, it ought to rest. The day must come when faithless parents must be arraigned by their injured children: and then will your people, among a countless multitude besides, rise up in judgment against mother-church for having made an elaborate provision for, not only desecrating the gospel, but generating infidelity towards both God and man.” “That may be all very true; but I cannot help my share of it now.” “You can stop the spread of the mischief which has sprung up through you. Come out of the church. You look more astonished than there is any occasion for. Remember——” “Remember, sister, how it is with other professions. A bad physician does not give up practice; nor does an ignorant lawyer, because of incapacity.” “Remember that the physician and lawyer who are as well known to be as unfit for their business as you are for yours, are not employed. In the profession of the church alone are the incapable sure of their occupation and its recompense. But no one is more aware than you that the days are coming when, if the unqualified do not step out of the church, they will be plucked out; or, if time be promised them to die out, it will be a chance whether the impatience of the long-betrayed people will not unroof the sanctuary from over their heads. You well know this, James. Your duty to your church, then, requires that you vacate your place: that at least one——” “Knave? Hypocrite? Come. Out with it!” “At least one unqualified person may give place to a true-hearted one who may help to restore what has been laid waste. If you owe no duty to your church, you do to your people; and both the one and the other require you to vacate.” “And Mary Lee forbids. If you had said all this a month ago——”