“Certainly,” he said, “as much so as if they were in prison for life, and there were armed sentries paraded before the gate. If, by any chance, they escape, they are seized and brought back as any escaped prisoner would be. The doors of these hells never open outward for these poor wretches, and it might be written on the portals ‘Death to all who enter here,’ and their lives are very brief when fresh victims must be got. Talk about slavery! Why, the very worst African slavery is Paradise to this, and our goody goody canting hypocrites make much ado over the enslavement of the negroes. “What can we expect when the church is silent, and the priests and bishops make excuses, and apologies for this foul and ghastly pestilence of lust? What a comment on the morals of a people when the church is seriously considering the necessity of separate cups for administering the wine at communion to prevent the contagion of venereal disease! Such a proposition would be amusing and a sarcasm, if it were not so serious, and yet an outsider cannot forbear asking why the church does not attack the root of the matter instead of lopping the branches, or why such noxious persons should be allowed to partake of the communion at all?” Again I interrupted, I inquired if there were not medical examinations, and did not the doctors give certificates? “Certainly,” he said, “but what of them? They might as well give consecrated charms to carry in the pocket, as a protection against cyclones and earthquakes. Do you suppose any man can give a certificate to protect any one against the evil results of a violation of the laws of God and nature? Can we thwart God when He evidently intended to make the consequences of sin terrible? Heal the sick, cure and save all we can, but their medical examinations and so-called cures are for another purpose. When Jesus lived, and as it is said, healed the diseased, what did he always say? “Go and sin no more.” But these false cures are not to cure, but on purpose to let the victims go and sin again, and be damned. I am not giving my own opinions, for I have talked with doctors themselves, and they have told me what they thought of the business. “One of them, a Scotchman, a true man in every fibre of his being, a surgeon who had been through the Mutiny, and at the siege of Delhi. I met him one morning, coming from the hospital. He referred to what he had been doing. Said he, ‘I hate the stinking business.’ ‘Why then, don’t you refuse to do it?’ ‘Man, alive! I would then lose my position, if I did. I am nearly ready to retire on a pension, and I cannot afford to stop now, and lose that.’