had a fine experience of the world, and a
vast variety of characters have passed under our eyes; but there is one
sort of men not an uncommon object of satire in novels and plays--of
whom I confess to have met with scarce any specimens at all in my
intercourse with this sinful mankind. I mean, mere religious hypocrites,
preaching for ever, and not believing a word of their own sermons;
infidels in broad brims and sables, expounding, exhorting, comminating,
blessing, without any faith in their own paradise, or fear about their
pandemonium. Look at those candid troops of hobnails clumping to church
on a Sunday evening; those rustling maid-servants in their ribbons whom
the young apprentices follow; those little regiments of schoolboys;
those trim young maidens and staid matrons, marching with their
glistening prayer-books, as the chapel bell chinks yonder (passing
Ebenezer, very likely, where the congregation of umbrellas, great
bonnets, and pattens, is by this time assembled under the flaring
gas-lamps). Look at those! How many of them are hypocrites, think you?
Very likely the maid-servant is thinking of her sweetheart: the grocer
is casting about how he can buy that parcel of sugar, and whether the
County Bank will take any more of his paper: the head-schoolboy is
conning Latin verses for Monday's exercise: the young scapegrace
remembers that after his service and sermon, there will be papa's
exposition at home, but that there will be pie for supper: the clerk who
calls out the psalm has his daughter in trouble, and drones through his
responses scarcely aware of their meaning: the very moment the parson
hides his face on his cushion, he may be thinking of that bill which is
coming due on Monday. These people are not heavenly-minded; they are of
the world, worldly, and have not yet got their feet off of it; but they
are not hypocrites, look you. Folks have their religion in some handy
mental lock-up, as it were--a valuable medicine, to be taken in
ill health; and a man administers his nostrum to his neighbour, and
recommends his private cure for the other's complaint. "My dear madam,
you have spasms? You will find these drops infallible!" "You have been
taking too much wine, my good sir? By this pill you may defy any evil
consequences from too much wine, and take your bottle of port daily." Of
spiritual and bodily physic, who are more fond and eager dispensers than
women? And we know that, especially a hundred years ago,