he Christian spears, are
not more or less praiseworthy than the same men slaughtering a townful
of Jews, or cutting off the heads of all prisoners who would not
acknowledge that there was but one Prophet of God."

"A little while since, young one," Warrington said, who had been
listening to his friend's confessions neither without sympathy nor
scorn, for his mood led him to indulge in both, "you asked me why I
remained out of the strife of the world, and looked on at the great
labour of my neighbour without taking any part in the struggle? Why,
what a mere dilettante you own yourself to be, in this confession of
general scepticism, and what a listless spectator yourself! You are
six-and-twenty years old; and as blase as a rake of sixty. You neither
hope much nor care much, nor believe much. You doubt about other men
as much as about yourself. Were it made of such pococuranti as you, the
world would be intolerable; and I had rather live in a wilderness of
monkeys, and listen to their chatter, than in a company of men who
denied everything."

"Were the world composed of Saint Bernards or Saint Dominies, it would
be equally odious," said Pen, "and at the end of a few scores of years
would cease to exist altogether. Would you have every man with his head
shaved, and every woman in a cloister,--carrying out to the full the
ascetic principle? Would you have conventicle hymns twanging from every
lane in every city in the world? Would you have all the birds of the
forest sing one note and fly with one feather? You call me a sceptic
because I acknowledge what is; and in acknowledging that, be it linnet
or lark, or priest or parson, be it, I mean, any single one of the
infinite varieties of the creatures of God (whose very name I would be
understood to pronounce with reverence, and never to approach but with
distant awe), I say that the study and acknowledgment of that variety
amongst men especially increases our respect and wonder for the Creator,
Commander, and Ordainer of all these minds, so different and yet so
united,--meeting in a common adoration, and offering up, each
according to his degree and means of approaching the Divine centre, his
acknowledgment of praise and worship, each singing (to recur to the bird
simile) his natural song."

"And so, Arthur, the hymn of a saint, or the ode of a poet, or the chant
of a Newgate thief, are all pretty much the same in your philosophy,"
said George.

"Even that sneer could be