it the men of the lower classes
had of breaking the furniture when they quarrelled with
their wives.

"Yes, they're quarrelling over the division of the earnings of the
street railways."

Bishop Morehouse became excited.

"It is wrong!" he cried. "It is so short-sighted on the part of the
workingmen. How can they hope to keep our sympathy--"

"When we are compelled to walk," Ernest said slyly.

But Bishop Morehouse ignored him and went on:

"Their outlook is too narrow. Men should be men, not brutes. There will
be violence and murder now, and sorrowing widows and orphans. Capital
and labor should be friends. They should work hand in hand and to their
mutual benefit."

"Ah, now you are up in the air again," Ernest remarked dryly. "Come back
to earth. Remember, we agreed that the average man is selfish."

"But he ought not to be!" the Bishop cried.

"And there I agree with you," was Ernest's rejoinder. "He ought not to
be selfish, but he will continue to be selfish as long as he lives in a
social system that is based on pig-ethics."

The Bishop was aghast, and my father chuckled.

"Yes, pig-ethics," Ernest went on remorselessly. "That is the meaning
of the capitalist system. And that is what your church is standing
for, what you are preaching for every time you get up in the pulpit.
Pig-ethics! There is no other name for it."

Bishop Morehouse turned appealingly to my father, but he laughed and
nodded his head.

"I'm afraid Mr. Everhard is right," he said. "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, the
let-alone policy of each for himself and devil take the hindmost. As Mr.
Everhard said the other night, the function you churchmen perform is to
maintain the established order of society, and society is established on
that foundation."

"But that is not the teaching of Christ!" cried the Bishop.

"The Church is not teaching Christ these days," Ernest put in quickly.
"That is why the workingmen will have nothing to do with the Church.
The Church condones the frightful brutality and savagery with which the
capitalist class treats the working class."

"The Church does not condone it," the Bishop objected.

"The Church does not protest against it," Ernest replied. "And in so far
as the Church does not protest, it condones, for remember the Church is
supported by the capitalist class."

"I had not looked at it in that light," the Bishop said naively. "You
must be wrong. I know that there is much that is sad and wicked in