Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/23

 and prosperous, surrounded by the princely mansions of those whom honest toil, business instincts, and enlightened piety have raised to a high place, watered by streams whose refreshing blackness testifies that they no longer minister to the selfish pleasures and the cruel sports of the feudal lord: this, surely, is the true Civitas Dei to which the old Hebrew unconsciously looked forward. The æsthete will tell you Manchester is smoky. It is true that it is veiled, but so was the Temple of Jerusalem. The jets of steam that shoot out from apertures in those sturdy walls whisper to me the names of Cobden and Bright, Cobden and Bright; and these, let me tell you, were truer and holier saints than any that Rome commemorates in her storied calendars. Jerusalem was on a hill; it was aristocratic; Manchester stands on a democratic plain. Walk through her ways, note how street is a facsimile of street and house of house. No proud castle scowls from its sullen battlements on the peaceful citizens, no flaunting spire rises high above every roof