am
always for encouraging useful men.'

'Even though their own objects may be vile and pernicious?'

'There you beg ever so many questions, Mr Carbury. Mr Melmotte wishes
to get into Parliament, and if there would vote on the side which you
at any rate approve. I do not know that his object in that respect is
pernicious. And as a seat in Parliament has been a matter of ambition
to the best of our countrymen for centuries, I do not know why we
should say that it is vile in this man.' Roger frowned and shook his
head. 'Of course Mr Melmotte is not the sort of gentleman whom you
have been accustomed to regard as a fitting member for a Conservative
constituency. But the country is changing.'

'It's going to the dogs, I think;--about as fast as it can go.'

'We build churches much faster than we used to do.'

'Do we say our prayers in them when we have built them?' asked the
Squire.

'It is very hard to see into the minds of men,' said the Bishop; 'but
we can see the results of their minds' work. I think that men on the
whole do live better lives than they did a hundred years ago. There is
a wider spirit of justice abroad, more of mercy from one to another, a
more lively charity, and if less of religious enthusiasm, less also of
superstition. Men will hardly go to heaven, Mr Carbury, by following
forms only because their fathers followed the same forms before them.'

'I suppose men will go to heaven, my Lord, by doing as they would be
done by.'

'There can be no safer lesson. But we must hope that some may be saved
even if they have not practised at all times that grand self-denial.
Who comes up to that teaching? Do you not wish for, nay, almost
demand, instant pardon for any trespass that you may commit,--of temper,
or manner, for instance? and are you always ready to forgive in that
way yourself? Do you not writhe with indignation at being wrongly
judged by others who condemn you without knowing your actions or the
causes of them; and do you never judge others after that fashion?'

'I do not put myself forward as an example.'

'I apologise for the personal form of my appeal. A clergyman is apt to
forget that he is not in the pulpit. Of course I speak of men in
general. Taking society as a whole, the big and the little, the rich
and the poor, I think that it grows better from year to year, and not
worse. I think, too, that they who grumble at the times, as Horace
did, and declare that each age is worse than its