The Irrational Knot/Chapter XI
One morning the Rev. George Lind received a letter addressed in a
handwriting which he did not remember and never thenceforth forgot.
Within the envelope he found a dainty little bag made of blue satin,
secured by ribbons of the same material. This contained a note written
on scented paper, edged with gold, and decorated with a miniature
representation of a pierrot, sitting cross-legged, conning a book, on
the open pages of which appeared the letters L.V. The clergyman
recognized the monogram no more than the writing. But as it was
evidently from a lady, he felt a pleasant thrill of expectation as he
unfolded the paper.
"Laurel Grove West Kensington
"Wednesday
"Dear Mr. George
"I have made poor little Lucy believe that Kew is the most heavenly
place on earth to spend a May morning so Bob has had to promise to
row her down there to-morrow (Thursday) after breakfast and I shall
be at home alone from eleven to one this is very short notice I
know but opportunities are scarce and another might not present
itself for a month.
"Believe me Dear Mr. George
"Yours sincerely
Lalage Virtue."
The Rev. George became thoughtful, and absently put the note in a little rack over the mantelpiece. Then, recollecting that a prying servant or landlady might misinterpret it, he transferred it to his pocket. After breakfast, having satisfied himself before the mirror that his dress was faultless, and his expression saintly, he went out and travelled by rail from Sloane Square to West Kensington, whence he walked to Laurel Grove. An elderly maid opened the gate. It was a rule with the Rev. George not to look at strange women; and this morning the asceticism which he thought proper to his office was unusually prominent in his thoughts. He did not look up once while the maid conducted him through the shrubbery to the house; and he fully believed that he had not seen at the first glance that she was remarkably plain, as Susanna took care that all her servants should be. Passing by the drawing-room, where he had been on a previous occasion, they went on to a smaller apartment at the back of the house.
"What room is this?" he asked, uneasily.
"Missus's Purjin bodoor, sir," replied the main.
She opened the door; and the clergyman, entering, found himself in a small room, luxuriously decorated in sham Persian, but containing ornaments of all styles and periods, which had been purchased and introduced just as they had caught Susanna's fancy. She was seated on a ottoman, dressed in wide trousers, Turkish slippers, a voluminous sash, a short Greek jacket, a long silk robe with sleeves, and a turban, all of fine soft materials and rare colors. Her face was skilfully painted, and her dark hair disposed so as not to overweight her small head. The clergyman, foolishly resisting a natural impulse to admire her, felt like St. Anthony struggling with the fascination of a disguised devil. He responded to her smile of welcome by a stiff bow.
"Sit down," she said. "You mustnt mind this absurd dress: it belongs to a new piece I am studying. I always study in character. It is the only way to identify myself with my part, you see."
"It seems a very magnificent dress, certainly," said the clergyman, nervously.
"Thank you for the compliment—"
"No, no," said he, hastily. "I had no such intention."
"Of course not," said Susanna, with a laugh. "It was merely an unpremeditated remark: all compliments are, of course. I know all about that. But do you think it a proper costume?"
"In what sense, may I ask?"
"Is it a correct Eastern dress? I am supposed to be one of the wives of the Caliph Somebody al Something. You have no idea how difficult it is to get a reliable model for a dress before laying out a heap of money on it. This was designed in Paris; but I should like to hear it criticized—chronologically, or whatever you call it—by a scholar."
"I really do not know, Madam. I am not an Orientalist; and my studies take a widely different direction from yours."
"Yes, of course," said Susanna, with a sigh. "But I assure you I often wish for your advice, particularly as to my elocution, which is very faulty. You are such a master of the art."
The clergyman bowed in acceptance of the compliment, and began to take heart; for to receive flattery from ladies in exchange for severe reproof was part of his daily experience.
"I have come here," he said, "to have a very serious conversation with you."
"All right, Doctor. Fire away."
This sudden whim of conferring on him a degree in divinity, and her change of manner—implying that she had been laughing at him before—irritated him. "I presume," he said, "that you are acquainted with the movements of your brother."
"Of Ned?" said Susanna, frowning a little. "No. What should I know about him?"
"He is, I believe, about to be married."
"No!" screamed Susanna, throwing herself back, and making her bangles and ornaments clatter. "Get out, Doctor. You dont mean it."
"Certainly I mean it. It is not my profession to jest. I must also tell you that his marriage will make it quite impossible for you to continue here with my cousin."
"Why? Who is he going to marry?"
"Ahem! He has succeeded in engaging the affections of my sister."
"What! Your sister? Marian Lind?"
"Yes."
Susanna uttered a long whistle, and then, with a conviction and simplicity which prevented even the Rev. George from being shocked, said: "Well, I am damned! I know more than one fool of a girl who will be sick and sorry to hear it." She paused, and added carelessly: "I suppose all your people are delighted?"
"I do not know why you should suppose so. We have had no hand in the matter. My sister has followed her own inclinations."
"Indeed! Let me tell you, young man, that your sister might have gone farther and fared worse."
"Doubtless. However, you will see now how impossible it is that you should remain in your present—that you should continue here, in fact."
"What do you mean?"
"You cannot," said the clergyman, accustomed to be bold and stern with female sinners, "when you are sister-in-law to Miss Lind, live as you are now doing with her cousin."
"Why not?"
"Because it would be a scandal. I will say nothing at present of the sin of it: you will have to account for that before a greater than I."
"Just so, Doctor. You dont mind the sin; but when it comes to a scandal—!"
"I did not say so. I abhor the sin. I have prayed earnestly for your awakening, and shall do so in spite of the unregenerate hardness of heart—"
"Hallo, Doctor! draw it mild, if you please. I am not one of your parishioners, you know. Perhaps that is the reason your prayers for me have not met with much attention. Let us stick to business: you may talk shop as much as you please afterwards. What do you want me to do?"
"To sever your connexion with Marmaduke at once. Believe me, it will not prove so hard a step as it may seem. You have but to ask for strength to do it, and you will find yourself strong. It will profit you even more than poor Marmaduke."
"Will it? I dont see it, Doctor. You think it will profit you: thats plain enough. But it wont profit me; it wont profit Bob; and it wont by any means profit the child."
"Not immediately, perhaps, in a worldly sense—"
"That is the sense I mean. Drop all that other stuff: I dont believe in you parsons: you are about the worst lot going, as far as I can see. Just tell me this, Doctor. Your sister is a very nice girl, I have no doubt: she would hardly have snapped up Ned if she wasn't. But why is she to have everything her own way?"
"I do not understand."
"Well, listen. Here is a young woman who has had every chance in life that hick could give her: silk cradles, gold rattles, rank, wealth, schooling, travelling, swell acquaintances, and anything else she chose to ask for. Even when she is fool enough to want to get married, her luck sticks to her, and she catches Ned, who is a man in a thousand—though Lord forbid we should have many of his sort about! Yet she's not satisfied. She wants me to give up my establishment just to keep her family in countenance."
"She knows nothing of my visit, I assure you."
"Even if she doesnt, it makes no odds as to the facts. She can go her own way; and I will go mine. I shant want to visit her; and I dont suppose she will visit me. So she need trouble herself no more than if there was no such person as I in the world."
"But you will find that it will be greatly to your advantage to leave this house. It is not our intention that you shall suffer in a pecuniary point of view by doing so. My father is rich—"
"What is that to me? He doesnt want me to go and live with him, does he?"
"You quite misunderstand me. No such idea ever entered—"
"There! go on. I only said that to get a rise out of you, Doctor. How do you make out that I should gain by leaving this house?"
"My father is willing to make you some amends for the withdrawal of such portion of Marmaduke's income as you may forfeit by ceasing your connexion with him."
"You have come to buy me out, in fact: is that it? What a clever old man your father must be! Knows the world thoroughly, eh?"
"I hope I have not offended you?"
"Bless you, Doctor! nobody could be offended with you. Suppose I agree to oblige you (you have a very seductive High Church way about you) who is to make Marmaduke amends for such portion of my income as our separation will deprive him of? Eh? I see that that staggers you a little. If you will just tot up the rent of this house since we have had it; the price of the furniture; our expenses, including my carriage and Marmaduke's horse and the boat; six hundred pounds of debt that he ran up before he settled down with me; and other little things; and then find out from his father how much money he has drawn within the last two years, I think you will find it rather hard to make the two balance. Your uncle is far too good a man to give Marmaduke money to spend on me; but he was not too good to keep me playing in the provinces all through last autumn just to make both ends meet, when I ought to have been taking my holiday. I wish you would tell his mother, your blessed pious Aunt Dora, to send Bob the set of diamonds his grandmother left him, instead of sermons which he never reads."
"I thought Marmaduke had nearly a thousand a year, independently of his father."
"A thousand a year! What is that? And your uncle would stop even that, if he could, to keep it out of my hands. You may tell him that if it didnt come into my hands it would hardly last a week. Only for the child, and the garden, and the sort of quiet life he leads here, he would spend a thousand a month. And look at my expenses! Look at my dresses! I suppose you think that people wear cotton velvet and glazed calico on the stage, as Mrs. Siddons did in the old days when they acted by candlelight. Why, between dress and jewellery, I have about two hundred pounds on my back at the present moment; and you neednt think that any manager alive will find dresses to that tune. At the theatre they think me overpaid at fifty pounds a week, although they might shut up the house to-morrow if my name was taken out of the bills. Tell your father that so far from my living on Bob, it is as much as I can do to keep this place going by my work—not to mention the worry of it, which always falls on the woman."
"I certainly had no idea of the case being as you describe," said the clergyman, losing his former assurance. "But would it not then be better for you to separate?"
"Certainly not. I want my house and home. So does he. If an income is rather tight, halving it is a very good way to make it tighter. No: if I left Bob, he would go to the devil; and very likely I should go to the devil, too, and disgrace you in earnest."
"But, my dear madam, consider the disgrace at present!"
"What disgrace? When your sister becomes Mrs. Ned, what will be the difference between her position and mine? Dont look aghast. What will be the difference?"
"Surely you do not suppose that she will dispense with the sacrament of marriage before casting in her lot with your brother!"
"I bet you my next week's salary that you dont get Ned to enter a church. He will be tied up by a registrar. Of course, your sister will have the law of him somehow: she cant help herself. She is not independent; and so she must be guaranteed against his leaving her without bread and butter. I can support myself, and may shew Bob a clean pair of heels to-morrow, if I choose. Even if she has money of her own, she darent stick to her freedom for fear of society. I snap my fingers at society, and care as little about it as it cares about me; and I have no doubt she would be glad to do the same if she had the pluck. I confess I shouldnt like to make a regular legal bargain of going to live with a man. I dont care to make love a matter of money; it gives it a taste of the harem, or even worse. Poor Bob, meaning to be honorable, offered to buy me in the regular way at St. George's, Hanover Square, before we came to live here; but, of course, I refused, as any decent woman in my circumstances would. Understand me now, Doctor: I dont want to give myself any virtuous airs, or to boast of behaving better than your sister. I know the world; and I know that she will marry Ned just as much because she thinks it right as because she cant help herself. But dont you try to make me swallow any gammon about my disgracing you and so forth. I intend to stay as I am. I can respect myself; and I dont care whether you or your family respect me or not. If you dont approve of me, why! nobody asks you to associate with me. If you want society, you have your own lot to mix with. If I want it, I can fill this house to-morrow. Not with stupid fine ladies, but with really clever people, who are not at all shy of me. Look at me at the present moment! I am receiving a morning visit from the best born and most popular parson in Belgravia. I wonder, Doctor, what your parishioners would think if they could see you now."
"I must confess that I do not understand you at all. You seem to see everything reversed—upside down. You—I—you bewilder me, Miss Conol—"
"Sh! Mademoiselle Lalage Virtue, if you please. Or you may call me Susanna, if you like, since we are as good as related."
"I fear," said the clergyman, blushing, "that we have no common ground on which to argue. I am sorry I have no power to influence you."
"Oh, dont say that. I really like you, Doctor, and would do more for you than most people. If your father had had the cheek to come himself to offer me money, and so forth, I would have put him out of the house double quick; whereas I have listened to you like a lamb. Never mind your hat yet. Have a bottle of champagne with me?"
"Thank you, no."
"Dont you drink at all?"
"No."
"You should. It would give a fillip to your sermons. Let me send you a case of champagne. Promise to drink a bottle every Sunday in the vestry before you come out to preach, and I will take a pew for the season in your church. Thats good of me, isnt it?"
"I must go," said the Rev. George, rising, after hastily pretending to look at his watch. "Will you excuse me?"
"Nonsense," she said, rising also, and slipping her hand through his arm to detain him. "Wait and have some luncheon. Why, Doctor, I really think youre afraid of me. Do stay."
"Impossible. I have much business which I am bound—Pray, let me go," pleaded the clergyman, piteously, ineffectually struggling with Susanna, who had now got his arm against her breast. "You must be mad!" he cried, drops of sweat breaking out on his brow as he felt himself being pulled helplessly toward the ottoman. She got her knee on it at last; and he made a desperate effort to free himself.
"Oh, how rough you are!" she exclaimed in her softest voice, adroitly tumbling into the seat as if he had thrown her down, and clinging to his arms; so that it was as much as he could do to keep his feet as he stooped over her, striving to get upright. At which supreme moment the door was opened by Marmaduke, who halted on the threshold to survey the two reproachfully for a moment. Then he said:
"George: I'm astonished at you. I have not much opinion of parsons as a rule; but I really did think that you were to be depended on."
"Marmaduke," said the clergyman, colouring furiously, and almost beside himself with shame and anger: "you know perfectly well that I am actuated in coming here by no motive unworthy of my profession. You misunderstand what you have seen. I will not hear my calling made a jest of."
"Quite right, Doctor," said Susanna, giving him a gentle pat of encouragement on the shoulder. "Defend the cloth, always. I was only asking him to stay to lunch, Bob. Cant you persuade him?"
"Do, old fellow," said Marmaduke. "Come! you must: I havnt had a chat with you for ever so long. I'm really awfully sorry I interrupted you. What on earth did you make Susanna rig herself out like that for?"
"Hold your tongue, Bob. Mr. George has nothing to do with my being in character. This is what came last night in the box: I could not resist trying it on this morning. I am Zobeida, the light of the harem, if you please. I must have your opinion of the rouge song, Doctor. Observe. This is a powder puff: I suppose you never saw such a thing before. I am making up my face for a visit of the Sultan; and I am apologizing to the audience for using cosmetics. The original French is improper; so I will give you the English version, by the celebrated Robinson, the cleverest adapter of the day:
'Poor odalisques in captive thrall
Must never let their charms pall:
If they get the sack
They ne'er come back;
For the Bosphorus is the boss for all
In this harem, harem, harem, harem, harum scarum place.'
Intellectual, isnt it?"
Susanna, whilst singing, executed a fantastic slow dance, stopping at certain points to clink a pair of little cymbals attached to her ankles, and to look for a moment archly at the clergyman.
"No," he said, hurt and offended into a sincerity of manner which compelled them to respect him for the first time, "I will not stay; and I am very sorry I came." And he left the room, his cheeks tingling. Marmaduke followed him to the gate. "Come and look us up soon again, old fellow," he said.
"Marmaduke," said the clergyman: "you are travelling as fast as you can along the road to Hell."
As he hurried away, Marmaduke leaned against the gate and made the villas opposite echo his laughter.
"On my soul, it's a shame," said he, when he returned to the house. "Poor old George!"
"He found no worse than he had made up his mind to find," said Susanna. "What right has he to come into my house and take it for granted, to my face, that I am a disgrace to his sister? One would think I was a common woman from the streets."
"Pshaw! What does he know? He is only a molly-coddling parson, poor fellow. He will give them a rare account of you when he goes back."
"Let him," said Susanna. "He can tell them how little I care for their opinion, anyhow."
The Rev. George took the next train to the City, and went to the offices of the Electro-Motor Company, where he found his father. They retired together to the board-room, which was unoccupied just then.
"I have been to that woman," said the clergyman.
"Well, what does she say?"
"She is an entirely abandoned person. She glories in her shame. I have never before met with such an example of complete and unconscious depravity. Yet she is not unattractive. There is a wonderfully clever refinement even in her coarseness which goes far to account for her influence over Marmaduke."
"No doubt; but apart from her personal charms, about which I am not curious, is she willing to assist us?"
"No. I could make no impression on her at all."
"Well, it cannot be helped. Did you say anything about Conolly's selling his interest here and leaving the country?"
"No," said the clergyman, struck with a sense of remissness. "I forgot that. The fact is, I hardly had the oppor—"
"Never mind. It is just as well that you did not: it might have made mischief."
"I do not think it is of the least use to pursue her with any further overtures. Besides, I really could not undertake to conduct them."
"May I ask," said Mr. Lind, turning on him suddenly, "what objection you have to Marian's wishes being consulted in this matter?"
The Rev. George recoiled, speechless.
"I certainly think," said Mr. Lind, more smoothly, "that Marian might have trusted to my indulgence instead of hurrying away to a lodging and writing the news in all directions. But I must say I have received some very nice letters about it. Jasper is quite congratulatory. The Court Journal has a paragraph this week alluding to it with quite good taste. Conolly is a very remarkable man; and, as the Court Journal truly enough remarks, he has won a high place in the republic of art and science. As a Liberal, I cannot say that I disapprove of Marian's choice; and I really think that it will be looked on in society as an interesting one."
Mr. Lind's son eyed him dubiously for quite a long time. Then he said, slowly, "Am I to understand that I may now speak of the marriage as a recognized thing?"
"Why not, pray?"
"Of course, since you wish it, and it cannot be helped—" The clergyman again looked at his father, still more dubiously. He saw in his eye that there would be a quarrel if the interview lasted much longer. So he said "I must go home now. I have to write my sermon for next Sunday."
"Very good. Do not let me detain you. Good-bye."
The Rev. George returned to his rooms quite dazed by the novelty of his sensations. He had always respected his father beyond other men; and now he knew that his father did not deserve his respect in the least. That was one conviction uprooted. And Susanna had done something to him—he did not exactly know what; but he felt altogether a different man from the clergyman of the day before. He had come face to face with what he called Vice for the first time, and found it not at all what he had supposed it to be. He had believed that he knew it to be most dangerously attractive to the physical, but utterly repugnant to the moral sense; and such fascination he was prepared to resist to the utmost. But he was attacked in just the opposite way, and thereby so thrown off his guard that he did not know he was attacked at all; so that he told himself vaingloriously that the shafts of the enemy had fallen harmlessly from his breastplate of faith. For he was not in the least charmed by Susanna's person. He had detected the paint on her cheeks, and had noted with aversion a certain unhealthy bloat in her face, and an alcoholic taint in her breath. He exulted in the consciousness that he had been genuinely disgusted, not as a matter of duty, but unaffectedly, as a matter of simple nature. What interested him in her was her novel and bold moral attitude, her self-respect in the midst of her sin, her striking arguments in favor of an apparently indefensible course of life. Hers was no common case of loose living, he felt: there was a soul to be saved there, if only Heaven would raise her up a friend in some man absolutely proof against the vulgar fascination of her prettiness. He began to imagine a certain greatness of character about her, a capacity for heroic repentance as well as for heroic sin. Before long he was amusing himself by thinking how it might have gone with her if she had him for her counsellor instead of a gross and thoughtless rake like Marmaduke.
It is not necessary to follow the wild goose chase which the Rev. George's imagination ran from this starting-point to the moment when he was suddenly awakened, by an unmistakable symptom, to the fact that he was being outwitted and beglamoured, like the utter novice he was, by a power which he believed to be the devil. He rushed to the little oratory he had arranged with a screen in the corner of his sitting-room, and prayed aloud, long and earnestly. But the hypnotizing process did not tranquilize him as usual. It excited him, and led him finally to a passionate appeal for pardon and intercession to a statuet of the Virgin Mother, of whom he was a very devout adorer. He had always regarded himself as her especial champion in the Church of England; and now he had been faithless to her, and indelicate into the bargain. And yet, in spite of his contrition, he felt that he was having a tremendous spiritual experience, which he would not for worlds have missed. The climax of it was the composition of his Sunday sermon, the labor of which secured him a sound sleep that night. It was duly delivered on the following Sunday morning in this form:
"Dearly beloved Brethren: In the twenty-third verse of the third chapter of St. Mark's gospel, we find this question: 'How can Satan cast out Satan?' How can Satan cast out Satan? If you will read what follows, you will perceive that that question was not answered. My brethren, it is unanswerable: it never has been, and it never can be answered.
"In these latter days, when the power of Satan has become so vast, when his empire and throne tower in our midst so that the faithful are cast down by the exceeding great shadow thereof, and when temples innumerable are open for his worship, it is no strange thing that many faint-hearted ones should give half their hearts to Beelzebub, and should hope by the prince of devils to cast out devils. Yes, this is what is taking place daily around us. Oh, you, who seek to excuse this book to infidel philosophers by shewing with how much facility a glib tongue may reconcile it with their so-called science, I tell you that it is science and not the Bible that shall need that apology in the great day of wrath. And, therefore, I would have you, my brethren, earnestly discountenance all endeavors to justify the Word of God by explaining it in conformity with the imaginations of the men of science. How can Satan cast out Satan? He cannot; but he can lead you into the sin of adding to and of taking from the words of this book. He can add plagues unto you, and take away your part out of the holy city.
"In this great London which we inhabit we are come upon evil day's. The rage of the blasphemer, the laugh at the scoffer, the heartless lip-service of the worldling, and the light dalliance of the daughters of music, are offered every hour upon a thousand Baal-altars within this very parish. I would ask some of you who spend your evenings in the playhouses which multiply around us like weeds sown in the rank soil of human frailty, what justification you make to yourselves when you are alone in the watches of the night, and your conscience saith, 'What went ye out for to see?' You will then complain of the bitterness of life, and prate of the refining influences of music; of the help to spiritual-mindedness given by the exhibition on the public stage of mockeries of God's world, wherein some pitiful temporal triumph of simulated virtue in the last act is the apology for the vicious trifling that has gone before. And in whom do you there see typified that virtue which you should shield in your hearts from the contamination of the theatre? Is it not in some woman whose private life is the scandalous matter of your whispered conversations, and whose shameless face smirks at you from the windows of those picture-shops which are a disgrace to our national morality? Is it from such as she that you will learn to be spiritual-minded? Does she appear before your carnal crowds repentant, her forehead covered with ashes, her limbs covered with sackcloth? No! Her brow is glowing with unquenchable fire to kindle the fuel that the devil has hidden in your hearts. Her raiment is cloth of gold; and she is not covered with it. Naked and unashamed, she smiles and weeps in mockery of the virtue which you would persuade yourselves that she represents to you. Will you learn spiritual-mindedness from the sight of her eyes, from the sound of her mouth, from the measure of her steps, or from the music and the dancing that cease not within the doors of her temple? How can Satan cast out Satan? Whom think ye to deceive by whitening the sepulchre? Is it yourselves? The devil has blinded you already. Is it God? Who shall hide anything from Him? I tell you that he who makes the pursuit of virtue a luxury, and takes refuge from sin, not before the altar, but in the playhouse, is casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.
"As I look about me in this church; I see many things intended to give pleasure to the carnal eye. Were the cost of all these dainty robes, this delicate headgear, these clouds of silk, of satin, of lace, and of sparkling jewels, were the price of these things brought into the Church's treasury, how loudly might the Gospel resound in lands between whose torrid shores and the tropical sun the holy shade of Calvary has not yet fallen! But, you will say, it is a good thing to be comely in the house of the Lord. The sight of what is beautiful elevates the mind. Uncleanness is a vice. This, then, is how you will war with uncleanness. Not by prayer and holy living. Not by pouring of your superfluity into the lap of the poor, and entering by the strait gate upon the narrow path in a garment without seam. No. By the dead and damning gold; by the purple and by the scarlet; by the brightness of the eyes that is born of new wine; by the mincing gait and the gloved fingers; and by the musk and civet instead of the myrrh and frankincense: by these things are you fain to purge your uncleanness. And will they suffice? Can Satan cast out Satan? Beware! 'For though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God.' There shall come a day when your lace and feathers shall hang on you as heavy as your chains of gold, to drag you down to him in whose name you have thought to cast out devils. Do not think that these things are harmless vanities. Nothing can fill the human heart and be harmless. If your thoughts be not of God, they will keep your minds distraught from His grace as effectually as the blackest broodings of crime. 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number, saith the Lord God.' Yes, your minds are too puny to entertain the full worship of God: do you think they are spacious enough to harbor the worship of Baal side by side with it? Much less dare you pretend that the Baal altar is erected for the honor of God, that you may come into His presence comely and clean. It is but a few days since I stood in the presence of a woman who boasted to me that she bore upon her the value of two hundred pounds of our money. I cared little for the value of money that was upon her. But what shall be said of the weight of sin her attire represented? For, those costly garments were the wages of sin—of hardened, shameless, damnable sin. Yet there is not before me a finer dress or a fairer face. Will you, my sisters, trust to the comeliness of visage and splendor of raiment in which such a woman as this can outshine you? Will you continue to cast out your devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils? Be advised whilst there is yet time. Ask yourself again and again, how can Satan cast out Satan?
"When sin is committed in a great city for wages, is there no fault on the side of those who pay the wages? There is more than fault: there is crime. I trust there are few among you who have done such crime. But I know full well that it may be said of London to-day 'Thou art full of stirs, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle.' No. Our young men are slain by the poison of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Nor is the crafty old subterfuge lacking here. There are lost ones in this town who say, 'It is by our means that virtue is preserved to the rich: it is we who appease the wicked rage which would otherwise wreck society.' There are men who boast that they have brought their sins only to the houses of shame, and that they have respected purity in the midst of their foulness. 'Such things must be,' they say: 'let us alone, lest a worse thing ensue.' When they are filled full with sin, they cry 'Lo! our appetite has gone from us and we are clean.' They are willing to slake lust with satiety, but not to combat it with prayer. They tread one woman into the mire, and excuse themselves because the garment of her sister is spotless. How vain is this lying homage to virtue! How can Satan cast out Satan?
"Oh, my brethren, this hypocrisy is the curse and danger of our age. The Atheist, no longer an execration, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach, poses now as the friend of man and the champion of right. Those who incur the last and most terrible curse in this book, do so in the name of that truth for which they profess to be seeking. Art, profanely veiling its voluptuous nakedness with the attributes of religion, disguises folly so subtly that it seems like virtue in the slothful eyes of those who neglect continually to watch and pray. The vain woman puts on her ornaments to do honor to her Creator's handiwork: the lustful man casts away his soul that society may be kept clean: there is not left in these latter days a sin that does not pretend to work the world's salvation, nor a man who flatters not himself that the sin of one may be the purging of many. To such I say, Look to your own soul: of no other shall any account be demanded of you. A day shall come in which a fire shall be kindled among your gods. The Lord shall array Himself with this land as a shepherd putteth on his garment. Be sure that then if ye shall say 'I am a devil; but I have cast out many devils,' He will reply unto you, How can Satan cast out Satan? Who shall prompt you to an answer to that question? Nay, though in His boundless mercy He give you a thousand years to search, and spread before you all the books of science and sociology in which you were wont to find excuses for sin, what will it avail you? Will a scoff, or a quibble over a doubtful passage, serve your turn? No. You cannot scoff whilst your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth for fear, and there will be no passage doubtful in all the Scriptures on that day; for the light of the Lord's countenance will be over all things."