Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/27

Rh "Amen" is shouted, loud enough to be heard all through the Church. This serves as a signal, to the Congregation, to prepare to rise when the procession appears: and it admits of no dispute that it is for this purpose that it is thus shouted. When we remember to Whom that "Amen" is really addressed, and consider that it is here used for the same purpose as one of the Church-bells, we must surely admit that it is a piece of gross irreverence? To me it is much as if I were to see a Bible used as a footstool.

As an instance of the dangers, for the Clergy themselves, introduced by this new movement, let me mention the fact that, according to my experience. Clergymen of this school are specially apt to retail comic anecdotes, in which the most sacred names and words sometimes actual texts from the Bible  are used as themes for jesting. Many such things are repeated as having been originally said by children, whose utter ignorance of evil must no doubt acquit them, in the sight of God, of all blame; but it must be otherwise for those who consciously use such innocent utterances as material for their unholy mirth.

Let me add, however, most earnestly, that I fully believe that this profanity is, in many cases, unconscious: the 'environment' (as I have tried to explain at p. 123) makes all the difference between man and man; and I rejoice to think that many of these profane stories which I find so painful to listen to, and should feel it a sin to repeat  give to their ears no pain, and to their consciences no shock; and that