of mine, Mr. Bragwell, they are the words of Jesus
Christ. I hope you will not charge him with having carried this too
far; for if you do, you charge him with being mistaken in the
religion he taught; and this can only be accounted for, by supposing
him an impostor.

_Bragwell._ Why, upon my word, Mr. Worthy, I don't like these
sayings of his which you quote upon me so often, and that is the
truth of it, and I can't say I feel much disposed to believe them.

_Worthy._ I hope you believe in Jesus Christ. I hope you believe
that creed of yours, which you also boasted of repeating so
regularly.

_Bragwell._ Well, well, I'll believe any thing you say, rather than
stand quarreling with you.

_Worthy._ I hope then, you will allow, that since it is adultery to
look at a woman with even an irregular thought, it follows from the
same rule, that all immodest dress in your daughters, or indecent
jests and double meanings in yourself; all loose songs or novels;
and all diversions also which have a like dangerous tendency, are
forbidden by the seventh commandment; for it is most plain from
what Christ has said, that it takes in not only the act, but the
inclination, the desire, the indulged imagination; the act is only
the last and highest degree of any sin; the topmost round, as it
were, of a ladder, to which all the lower rounds are only as so many
steps and stages.

_Bragwell._ Strict indeed! Mr. Worthy; but let us go on to the next;
you won't pretend to say _I steal_; Mr. Bragwell, I trust, was never
known to rob on the highway, to break open his neighbor's house, or
to use false weights or measures.

_Worthy._ No, nor have you ever been under any temptation to do it,
and yet there are a thousand ways of breaking the eighth commandment
besides actual stealing. For instance do you never hide the faults
of the goods you sell, and heighten the faults of those you buy? Do
you never take advantage of an ignorant dealer, and ask more for a
thing than it is worth? Do you never turn the distressed
circumstances of a man who has something to sell, to your unfair
benefit; and thus act as unjustly by him as if you had stolen? Do
you never cut off a shilling from a workman's wages, under the
pretense which your conscience can't justify? Do you never pass off
an unsound horse for a sound one? Do you never conceal the real rent
of your estate from the overseers, and thereby rob the poor-rates of
their legal due?

_Bragwell._ Pooh!