_Mr. Talbot._--"Well, Sir, after all the attacks which you have made on the character of theatrical performers, and the defence which you have set up in favour of the clergy, I maintain that the sanctimonious hypocrite who retires from the pulpit, where he has delivered his grave moral lectures, to sin in secret, is a more pernicious character than the most profligate player that ever disgraced his profession. For do not the vices of the clergy shake our confidence in the truth of religion, which you know is never done by the vices of the stage; and is not their example, in consequence of their more powerful influence over the public mind, more destructive to the morals of society?" _Mr. Falkland._--"If, Sir, your belief in the Divine origin of Christianity is ever shaken by the vices of its professors, you give a decisive proof that it does not rest on the legitimate evidence which is offered in confirmation of it. Christianity claims a Divine origin, and she adduces irrefragable arguments in confirmation of it; but the consistent conduct of _all_ her professors is not one of them. Judas was a traitor, but his treachery did not weaken the force of evidence which the miracles of Jesus Christ supplied in favour of his Divine mission; and though it is very common for us to look for an exact correspondence between the life of a Christian and the purity of his professed faith, yet if all who profess to believe in the Christian religion should become as licentious in their manners as the most notorious libertines, their profligacy would not weaken the evidences on which Christianity founds her claims to our belief. They would be convicted of the crimes of which they are guilty; but by what process of fair argumentation could you bring the verdict recorded against them to disprove the divinity of a system of religion which is supported by the evidence of prophecy, of miracle, of testimony, its own internal purity, and its more than magic power in the renovation and transformation of the most impure and debased of men?" _Mr. Talbot._--"Well, perhaps I made a slight mistake by saying that the vices of the clergy tend to shake our confidence in the divinity of our faith. It would have been more correct to say, they have a tendency to make us mistrustful of the integrity of the clerical character. But will you not admit that they have a most pernicious influence over the popular mind--more especially on young men who are just entering into active life?"