Ten thousand virulent disputes about tithes ushered in the diabolisms of the French Revolution; and many of my readers will remember how Charles Dickens, when a Parliamentary reporter, dropped his pencil in tears, unable to go on, as Daniel O'Connell described one of the tragedies of a tithe-riot in Ireland. When Religion went forth as Christ sent it forth, _it demanded nothing for the priest_. Yet, the same religion, organized into an episcopacy, afterwards wrote the tax of one-tenth upon the statute-book, and sold the widow's cow to pay the priest for his prayer. In those days, it must have been a gruesome spectacle as the burly parson, a picture of physical fullness, stood in the background, personifying Law and Religion, while the bailiff raided the cotter's wretched premises, pounced upon pigs and poultry, or dragged household goods off to public sale. Yet, during centuries of outrage, pain and starvation, this sort of robbery disguised itself with _a double domino of Law and Religion_. Forgive me, if I digress briefly to mention how vividly I was reminded of all this, by the thrifty, business-like manner in which Bishop P. J. Donohue, of Wheeling, West Virginia, sold out a laboring man, S. W. Hawley, _for rent_, in the year of our Crucified Lord, 1913. To satisfy the debt due to this most worshipful Bishop of God, the following personal property was seized, and advertised for sale, to-wit: 3 bed springs and 3 beds, 3 mattresses, 1 stove, 2 tables, 10 chairs, 3 pictures, 1 broom, 4 comforts, 2 blankets, 3 quilts, 4 pillows, and some dishes. (It was further stated that Hawley's back was broken, while working in the coal mines.) George Alfred Townsend, who was so well known to journalism as "Gath," wrote a novel which he called "The Entailed Hat." The book would have lived gloriously, had it not been for the hat: the sternly absurd conditions which this idea about the Entailed Hat fastened upon the author, killed his novel. But there was in it one passage which lingers yet in my recollection, after the lapse of more than 30 years. There were two brothers, shrewd, pushing, flinty Jews, who drove hard bargains, hard collections, and filled a store-room with household plunder sold for debt, and bought in by the Jews, to be resold at a profit. "Gath" gave tongue to each article of this pitiful domestic furniture, torn from the homes of the poor, and auctioned at public outcry. The old rickety cradle spoke of the babes that had lain in it, and of the mother-songs that had been sung over it, as the foot which moves the world softly pedalled the wooden rockers. The loom and the spindle had their stories to tell: the table and the dishes spoke of the plain meals and unpretentious hospitalities of the lowly: the chairs remembered the humble hearth and fireside, and many a circle of bright faces they had helped to form around the cheerful glow of the burning logs.