Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/53

 in a divorce case, tens of thousands of men and women turn their backs on the Church. When anything low, mean, despicable or treacherous is said or done by a professing "servant of Christ," the evil word or deed from such a source makes Christianity a byword to many more than the merely profane. When certain great dignitaries of the Church sit wine-bibbing at "swagger" dinner-parties, relating questionable or "spicy" anecdotes unfitting for the ears of decent women, they lose not only caste themselves, but they lay all the brethren of their order open to doubt. "Example is better than precept." We have all written that in our school copy-books,—and nothing has ever happened, or ever will happen, that is likely to contradict the statement. If London is indeed a "pagan" city, as Archdeacon Sinclair has solemnly declared from under the shadowy luminance of his own big "fairy lamp," St. Paul's Cathedral, then the clergy, and the clergy alone are responsible. On their "ordained" heads be it! For "pagan" people are merely the natural outcome of a "pagan" priesthood.