"It's mere humbug, John, to keep us down: that's what it is!" said Jim: "one of these piety-mongers left us a tract last week; and what should it contain but that old tale of Bishop Burnet, about the widow that somebody who peeped through the chinks of the window-shutters saw kneeling by a table with a crust of bread before her, and crying out in rapture, 'All this and Christ!' I tell thee what, John, if old Burnet had been brought down from his gold and fat living, and had tried it himself, I could better have believed him. It's a tale told like many others to make fools and slaves of us: that's what I think. Ay, and I told the long-faced fellow so that fetched the tract. He looked very sourly at me, and said the poor did not use to trouble themselves about politics in his father's time, and every body was more comfortable then than they are now. 'The more fools were they,' said I: 'if the poor had begun to think of their rights sooner, instead of listening to religious cant, we should not have been so badly off now:' and away he went, and never said another word. "But I don't like to give way to bad thoughts about religion, after all, Jim," said John: "it's very mysterious—the present state of things: but we may find it all explained in the next life." "Prythee, John," exclaimed the other, interrupting him, impatiently, "don't talk so weakly. That's the way they all wrap it up; and if a guess in the dark and a 'maybe' will do for an argument, why any thing will do. Until somebody can prove to me that there _is_ another life after this, I shall think it my duty to think about this only. Now just look at this, John! If there be another life after this, why the present is worth nothing: every moment here ought to be spent in caring for eternity; and every man who really believes in such a life would not care how he passed this, so that he could but be making a preparation for the next: isn't that true, John?" "To be sure it is, Jim; and what o' that?" "Why, then, tell me which of 'em believes in such a life. Do you see any of the canting tribe less eager than others to get better houses, finer chairs and tables, larger shops, and more trade? Is old Sour-Godliness in the north, there, more easily brought to give up a penny in the dozen to save a starving stockinger than the grinders that don't profess religion? I tell thee, John, it's all fudge: they don't believe it themselves, or else they would imitate Christ before they tell us to be like him!"