Page:The looking-glass.djvu/63

Rh for you to retract—to cease to do evil, and learn to do well. The question comes up—why do you give the people such advice? It is easy to give the answer—it is because you must keep them together that they may maintain you and the ordinary ministers. You would keep them up like sheep, that you may catch them easily, and shear off their fleece for your own benefit. You will not let them go to Africa, or anywhere else, lest you lose the support which you derive from them while they remain with you. What is the condition, and what are the circumstances of those from whom these Bishops receive their support? They are, generally, very poor people, with little employment, and paying heavy rents, with large families to maintain, which is enough to sink them to the earth, without the super-added weight of three bishops, two of whom are of no more necessity to that little society than a pair of double spectacles to a blind man. How do the old and sickly members fare? Badly enough! After having served the Church, aided in paying the ministers for some fifteen or twenty years, and having labored thus for the support of the Gospel all through their best days, they have found no help in their old age from either ministers or lay members. It is a shame to tell these infirm and