Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/41

Rh The reverends allied themselves with the merry-andrews. The Laughing Man had inflicted a blow on the preachers. There were empty places not only in the shows, but in the churches. The congregations in the churches of the five parishes in Southwark had dwindled away. People left before the sermon to go to see Gwynplaine. "Chaos Vanquished," the Green Box, the Laughing Man, all the abominations of Baal, eclipsed the eloquence of the pulpit. The voice crying in the desert,—vox clamantis in deserto,—is discontented, and is prone to call in the aid of the authorities. The clergy of the five parishes complained to the Bishop of London, who in turn complained to her Majesty.

The complaint of the merry-andrews was based on religion. They declared it to be insulted. They described Gwynplaine as a sorcerer, and Ursus as an atheist. The reverend gentlemen invoked social order. Setting orthodoxy aside, they took action on the fact that acts of parliament were violated. This was clever, for it was in the time of Mr. Locke, who had died only six months previous,—October 28, 1704,—and when the scepticism which Bolingbroke had instilled into Voltaire was taking root. Later on Wesley came and restored the Bible, as Loyola restored papacy.

Thus the Green Box was attacked on all sides,—by the merry-andrews, in the name of the Pentateuch, and by chaplains in the name of social order; in the name of Heaven and of the inspectors of nuisances,—the reverends espousing the cause of the police, and the mountebanks that of Heaven. The Green Box was denounced by the priests as a disturbing element, and by the jugglers as sacrilegious.

Had they any pretext? Was there any excuse? Yes. What was the objection? This: the wolf. A dog was allowable; a wolf forbidden. In England the wolf is