Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/84

 be applied, if need be, to those who deliberately set themselves against popular sentiment. It is not many weeks ago since I saw the very interesting account of the proceedings taken by Mr. Comstock and the Society for the Suppression of Vice against a certain Art Club which had committed the gross indecency of making studies from the nude. Now the American People (very wisely, in my opinion) does not approve of Art, suspecting, and rightly suspecting, that the word in nine cases out of ten is used as a veil for obscenity; the consequence is that the disgusting publications of this self-styled "Art Club" have been seized, and the members of the society bound over for prosecution. Again, you will have noted the case of Maxim Gorky. Sacerdotalists have said hard things about the American Marriage Laws, which indeed breathe the genial spirit of an advanced and liberalised Christianity, and are, therefore, naturally unacceptable to our friends the priests. Yet, there is a moral sentiment in America which puts us to the blush, and the Russian