and
Christianity. Well, he was free to maintain that old Tom Paine was as
good a scholar as any of 'em, and most of them in that hall knew what he
thought about it. Tom Paine hadn't anything to say against Jesus Christ,
and he hadn't. He was a workman and a fine sort of Man, and if he'd been
alive now he'd have been a Socialist, 'as most of us are,' and he'd have
made it hot for the rich loafers, and the sweaters, and the middle-men,
'as we'd like to make it hot for 'em.' But as for those people who got
up the Church-Mythologists Tom Paine called 'em-and the miracles, and
made an uncommonly good thing out of it, pecuniarily speaking, he
didn't see what they'd got to do with keeping, or mending, or preserving
_their_ precious bit of work. The world had found 'em out, and serve'em
right.

And he wound up with a fierce denunciation of priests, not without harsh
savor and eloquence, which was much clapped by the small knot of workmen
among whom he had been standing.

Then there followed a Socialist--an eager, ugly, black-bearded little
fellow, who preached the absolute necessity of doing without 'any cultus
whatsoever,' threw scorn on both the Christians and the Positivists for
refusing so to deny themselves, and appealed earnestly to his group of
hearers 'to help in brining religion back from heaven to earth, where it
belongs.' Mr. Elsmere's new church, if he ever got it, would only be a
fresh instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie. And when the people
had got their rights and brought down the capitalists, they were not
going to be such fools as put their necks under the heel of what were
called 'the educated classes.' The people who wrote the newspapers Mr.
Elsmere objected to, know quite enough for the working-man--And people
should not be too smooth-spoken; what the working class wanted beyond
everything just now was _grit_.

A few other short speeches followed, mostly of the common Secularist
type, in defence of the newspapers attacked. But the defence, on the
whole, was shuffling and curiously half-hearted. Robert, sitting by with
his head on his hand, felt that there, at any rate, his onslaught had
told.

He said a few words in reply, in a low husky voice, without a trace
of his former passion, and the meeting broke up. The room had quickly
filled when it was known that he was up again; and as he descended
the steps of the platform, after shaking hands with the chairman, the
hundreds present broke into a su