is to filch us, to pluck and eat us, by
such modes as are convenient for him. For the modes and guises I care
little. The Quack once inevitable, let him come swiftly, let him pluck
and eat me;--swiftly, that I may at least have done with him; for in
his Quack-world I can have no wish to linger. Though he slay me, yet
will I _not_ trust in him. Though he conquer nations, and have all the
Flunkies of the Universe shouting at his heels, yet will I know well
that _he_ is an Inanity; that for him and his there is no continuance
appointed, save only in Gehenna and the Pool. Alas, the Atheist world,
from its utmost summits of Heaven and Westminster-Hall, downwards
through poor seven-feet Hats and 'Unveracities fallen hungry,' down to
the lowest cellars and neglected hunger-dens of it, is very wretched.

One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much.[26] A poor Irish
Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went
forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help
from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable
Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to
the other, helped by none;--till she had exhausted them all; till her
strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever; died,
and infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons'
died of fever there in consequence. The humane Physician asks
thereupon, as with a heart too full for speaking, Would it not have
been _economy_ to help this poor Widow? She took typhus-fever, and
killed seventeen of you!--Very curious. The forlorn Irish Widow
applies to her fellow-creatures, as if saying, "Behold I am sinking,
bare of help: ye must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone;
one God made us: ye must help me!" They answer, "No, impossible; thou
art no sister of ours." But she proves her sisterhood; her
typhus-fever kills _them_: they actually were her brothers, though
denying it! Had human creature ever to go lower for a proof?

For, as indeed was very natural in such case, all government of the
Poor by the Rich has long ago been given over to Supply-and-demand,
Laissez-faire and suchlike, and universally declared to be
'impossible.' "You are no sister of ours; what shadow of proof is
there? Here are our parchments, our padlocks, proving indisputably our
money-safes to be _ours_, and you to have no business with them.
Depart! It is impossible!"--Nay, what wouldst thou t