His Views and Principles
most intimately two of the most Liberal Peers, I have visited the palatial residence of Sir Josiah Smeech, who has raised himself from poverty and obscurity to his present great position, I am naturally welcome at the tables and in the drawing-rooms of the principal members of my congregation, some of them extremely wealthy men, and I have long been acquainted with the leaders of the Free Church Party in the House of Commons. I think you will admit, then, that I am not without experience in the conversation of men of light and leading; but I can earnestly and truthfully assure you that on no occasion have I heard anything remotely resembling the dialogue in the play I am discussing. Scene after scene proceeds with this stream of empty, irreligious chatter—in another play by the same author there is a character who swears "by the mass"—and we gather by degrees that there are two brothers, one of whom is held up to our admiration, but who seems to me the worse character of the two—if there be degrees of turpitude
113
