ays free from
imposition, even when they receive aid in the name of charity, and
sometimes theology under the cloak of religion oppresses them. This last
thought had been suggested by seeing in our rounds some half-starved
women dropping pennies into the hands of Sisters of Charity, who were
even here in the midst of terrible want, exacting from the starving
money for a church whose coffers groan with wealth. O religion,
ineffably radiant and exalting in thy pure influence, how thou art often
debased by thy professed followers! How much injustice is meted out to
the very poor, and how many crimes are still committed under thy cloak
and in thy holy name! Even this poor widow had bitterly suffered through
priests who belong to a great communion, claiming to follow Him who
cried, "Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will
give you rest," as will be seen by the following, related to me by Rev.
Walter Swaffield, who was personally cognizant of the facts. The husband
of this widow was out of work for a time; being too ill to engage in
steady work, he found it impossible to pay the required ten cents for
seats in the church to which he belonged, and was consequently excluded
from his sitting. Shortly after he fell sick, his wife sought the
priest, imploring him to administer the sacrament, and later extreme
unction, which he positively refused, leaving the poor man to die
without the consolation of the Church he had from infancy been taught to
love and revere.

It is not strange that many in this world of misery become embittered
against society; that they sometimes learn to hate all who live in
comfort, and who represent the established order of things, and from the
rank of the patient, uncomplaining struggler descend to a lower zone,
where the moral nature is eclipsed by degradation and crime, and life
takes on a deeper shade of horror. This class of people exist on the
brink of a precipice. Socially, they may be likened to the physical
condition of Victor Hugo's Claude Frollo after Quasimodo had hurled him
from the tower of Notre Dame. You remember the sickening sensation
produced by that wonderful piece of descriptive work, depicting the
false priest hanging to the eaves, vainly striving to ascend, feeling
the leaden gutter to which he was holding slowly giving away. His hands
send momentary messages to the brain, warning it that endurance is
almost exhausted. Below he sees the sharp formidable spires o