You
cannot quarrel for sixpences with the man who is helping you the way to
heaven. The man who wants your sixpences, therefore, assumes a religious
phraseology, which is cant, and cant is fraud, and fraud is dishonesty,
and the dishonest should have a mark set on them.'
There is an old story about a certain lady who said to her physician,
'Doctor, what is your religion?' 'My religion, madam,' replied the
Doctor, 'is the religion of all sensible men.' 'What kind of religion is
that?' said the lady. 'The religion, madam,' quoth the Doctor, 'that no
sensible man will tell.'
This doctor may be taken as a type of the class of shrewd people who
despise religion, but will say nothing about it, lest by so doing they
give a shock to prejudice, and thus put in peril certain professional or
other emoluments. Too sensible to be pious, and too cautious to be
honest, they must be extremely well paid ere they will incur the risk
attendant upon a confession of irreligious faith. Like Colonel Thompson,
they know the world needs _honest_ lawgivers not pious ones, but unlike
him, they won't say so. Animated by a vile spirit of accommodation,
their whole sum of practical wisdom can be told in four words--BE SILENT
AND SAFE.
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