Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/158

 this is not precisely the code of to-day. We pride ourselves on our commercial prosperity, we do not wish to imitate the Popish "saints" in their superstitious views of poverty, we regard a successful and wealthy business man as a highly enviable and laudable individual, we applaud economy and prudent foresight in business matters, and, speaking for the Free Churches, I need scarcely say that we are devoted adherents of the great cause of Temperance. With the utmost stretch of my imagination, I cannot conceive of a minister of any respectable denomination drinking in a common public-house, with actors, painters, authors, or musicians, who, I am afraid, are rarely men of very sober habits; nor can I for a moment admit that it would be possible for myself, or for any of my brethren, to cultivate the society of the unhappy women who have been branded with the shameful stigma of the Divorce Court.

But ours, as I have observed, is an ethical age, and I cannot sufficiently praise the manner in which the chief literary critics