“You told me everybody did it--that there was no way to help doing it. You called it the competition of capital!” “I submit that this is an outrage!” exclaimed Mr. Hickman. “Leave this room, sir!” “The poor people in this town are suffering and dying!” cried Samuel. “And they are being robbed and oppressed. And are these things to go on forever?” “Samuel, this is no place to discuss the question!” broke in Dr. Vince. “But why not, sir? The guilty men are high in the councils of this church. They hold the church up to disgrace before all the world. And this is the church of Christ, sir!” “But yours is not the way to go about it, boy!” exclaimed Mr. Hamerton--who was alarmed because Samuel kept looking at him. “Why not?” cried Samuel. “Did not Christ drive out the money-changers from the temple with whips?” This was an uncomfortable saying. There was a pause after it, as if everyone were willing to let his neighbor speak first. “Are we not taught to follow Christ's example, Dr. Vince?” asked the boy. “Hardly in that sense, Samuel,” said the terrified doctor. “Christ was God. And we can hardly be expected--” “Ah, that is a subterfuge!” broke in Samuel, passionately. “You say that Christ was God, and so you excuse yourself from doing what He tells you to! But I don't believe that He was God in any such sense as that. He was a man, like you and me! He was a poor man, who suffered and starved! And the rich men of His time despised Him and spit upon Him and crucified Him!” Here a new member of the vestry entered the arena. This was the venerable Mr. Curtis, who looked like a statue of the Olympian Jove. “Boy,” he said sternly, “you object to being put out of the church--and yet you confess to being an infidel.” “I may be an infidel, Mr. Curtis,” replied the other, quickly; “but I never paid two hundred dollars to Slattery so that the police would let me block the sidewalks of the town.” And Mr. Curtis subsided and took no further part in the discussion. “The church cast out Jesus!” went on Samuel, taking advantage of the confusion. “And it was the rich and powerful in the church who did it. And he used about them language far more violent than I have ever used. 'Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!' he said. 'Woe unto you also, you lawyers!--Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' And if He were here tonight He would be on my side--and the rich evil-doers who sit on this board would cast Him out again! You have cast Him out already! You have shut your ears to the cry of the oppressed--you make mockery of justice and truth! You are crucifying Him again every day!” “This is outrageous!” cried Mr. Hickman. “It is blasphemy!” “It must stop instantly,” put in Mr. Wygant. And Samuel knew that when Mr. Wygant spoke, he meant to be obeyed. “Then there is no one here who will hear me?” he exclaimed. “Mr. Hamerton, won't you help me?” “What do you want us to do?” demanded Mr. Hamerton.