icence have searched and sat studious, eager to do
their very best; they have chosen a real Artist in Governing to see
their best, in all details of it, done. Happy regiments of the line,
what soldier to any earthly or celestial Power has such a lodging and
attendance as you here? No soldier or servant direct or indirect of
God or of man, in this England at present. Joy to you, regiments of the
line. Your Master, I am told, has his Elect, and professes to be "Prince
of the Kingdoms of this World;" and truly I see he has power to do a
good turn to those he loves, in England at least. Shall we say, May
_he_, may the Devil give you good of it, ye Elect of Scoundrelism? I
will rather pass by, uttering no prayer at all; musing rather in silence
on the singular "worship of God," or practical "reverence done to
Human Worth" (which is the outcome and essence of all real "worship"
whatsoever) among the Posterity of Adam at this day.

For all round this beautiful Establishment, or Oasis of Purity, intended
for the Devil's regiments of the line, lay continents of dingy poor
and dirty dwellings, where the unfortunate not _yet_ enlisted into
that Force were struggling manifoldly,--in their workshops, in their
marble-yards and timber-yards and tan-yards, in their close cellars,
cobbler-stalls, hungry garrets, and poor dark trade-shops with
red-herrings and tobacco-pipes crossed in the window,--to keep the Devil
out-of-doors, and not enlist with him. And it was by a tax on these
that the Barracks for the regiments of the line were kept up. Visiting
Magistrates, impelled by Exeter Hall, by Able-Editors, and the
Philanthropic Movement of the Age, had given orders to that effect.
Rates on the poor servant of God and of her Majesty, who still serves
both in his way, painfully selling red-herrings; rates on him and his
red-herrings to boil right soup for the Devil's declared Elect! Never
in my travels, in any age or clime, had I fallen in with such Visiting
Magistrates before. Reserved they, I should suppose, for these ultimate
or penultimate ages of the world, rich in all prodigies, political,
spiritual,--ages surely with such a length of ears as was never
paralleled before.

If I had a commonwealth to reform or to govern, certainly it should
not be the Devil's regiments of the line that I would first of all
concentrate my attention on! With them I should be apt so make rather
brief work; to them one would apply the besom, try to sweep _