civilization and organization, as well as of religion and morality, for
the district; and I am bidden to invite you, as close neighbours of
Portsea, to help in the good work. I, of course, know too little of
local facts, or of the temper of the people of Southsea. But I am bound
to believe it to be the same as I have found it elsewhere. And I
therefore shall confine myself to general questions, and shall treat this
case of Portsea, as what it is, alas! one among a hundred similar ones,
and say to you simply what I have said for twenty-five years, wherever
and whenever I can get a hearing. And therefore if I seem here and there
to speak sharply and sternly, recollect that I pay you a compliment in so
doing--first, that I speak not to you, but to all English men and women;
and next, that I speak as to those who have noble instincts, if they will
be only true to them:--as to English people, who are not afraid of being
told the truth; to English people who do wrong rather from forgetfulness
and luxury, than from meanness and cruelty aforethought; who, as far as I
have seen, need, for the most part, only to be reminded that they are
doing wrong, to reawaken them to their better selves, and set them trying
honestly and bravely to do right.

Let me then begin this sermon with a parable. Alas! that the parable
should represent a common and notorious fact. Suppose yourselves in some
stately palace, amid marbles and bronzes, statues and pictures, and all
that cunning brain and cunning hand, when wedded to the high instinct of
beauty, can produce. The furniture is of the very richest, and kept with
the most fastidious cleanliness. The floors of precious wood are
polished like mirrors. The rooms have every appliance for the ease of
the luxurious inmates. Everywhere you see, not mere brute wealth, but
taste, purity, and comfort. There is no lack of intellect either:--wise
and learned books fill the library shelves; maps and scientific
instruments crowd the tables. Nor of religion either;--for the house
contains a private chapel, fitted up in the richest style of mediaeval
ecclesiastical art. And as you walk along from polished floor to
polished floor, you seem to pass in review every object which the body,
or the mind, or the spirit, of the most civilized human being can need
for its satisfaction.

But, next to the chapel itself, a scent of carrion makes you start. You
look, against the