al significance as
to have left on her mind no feeling of reverence for such subjects.
There had always been a hard worldly leaven of the love either of
income or of power in the strains she had heard; there had been no
panting for the truth; no aspirations after religious purity. It had
always been taken for granted by those around her that they were
indubitably right; that there was no ground for doubt; that the hard
uphill work of ascertaining what the duty of a clergyman should be
had been already accomplished in full; and that what remained for an
active militant parson to do was to hold his own against all comers.
Her father, it is true, was an exception to this, but then he was
so essentially anti-militant in all things that she classed him in
her own mind apart from all others. She had never argued the matter
within herself, or considered whether this common tone was or was not
faulty; but she was sick of it without knowing that she was so. And
now she found to her surprise, and not without a certain pleasurable
excitement, that this new-comer among them spoke in a manner very
different from that to which she was accustomed.

"It is so easy to condemn," said he, continuing the thread of his
thoughts. "I know no life that must be so delicious as that of a
writer for newspapers, or a leading member of the opposition--to
thunder forth accusations against men in power; to show up the worst
side of everything that is produced; to pick holes in every coat;
to be indignant, sarcastic, jocose, moral, or supercilious; to damn
with faint praise, or crush with open calumny! What can be so easy as
this when the critic has to be responsible for nothing? You condemn
what I do, but put yourself in my position and do the reverse, and
then see if I cannot condemn you."

"Oh, Mr. Arabin, I do not condemn you."

"Pardon me, you do, Mrs. Bold--you as one of the world; you are now
the opposition member; you are now composing your leading article,
and well and bitterly you do it. 'Let dogs delight to bark and
bite'--you fitly begin with an elegant quotation--'but if we are to
have a church at all, in heaven's name let the pastors who preside
over it keep their hands from each other's throats. Lawyers can live
without befouling each other's names; doctors do not fight duels.
Why is it that clergymen alone should indulge themselves in such
unrestrained liberty of abuse against each other?' and so you go on
reviling us for our ungod