Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/258

 savour of the true Gospel, or the pure unadulterated Word of God in it?"

"I excepted their spiritual condition expressly from my question," said the Englishman. "No doubt as to their spiritual condition they were kept in great darkness and ignorance. But I have always understood that the Roman Catholic clergy were easy landlords; and I have read in your Scottish histories that the nobles and gentry who got possession of the Church lands were the reverse of easy landlords. And now I see here a landlord feeding his game upon the little crops of his poor tenants, and I am informed that when they humbly petition for redress their petitions are treated with the disregard that a beast of prey might be expected to show for the petition of the animal he preyed on. Is this just? Is this merciful? Is this the conduct becoming a pious nobleman?"

"Sir," replied the minister, "in obedience to the command—judge not that ye be not judged—I would be far from presuming to judge a great and pious nobleman as respects this matter of game—though even I myself in respect of my small bit of glebe land have been a sufferer in no small degree, and moreover I did even once venture