ttle
scavengering; and, as the all-including point, to cheapen the terrible
cost of Government: but neither of these enterprises makes progress,
owing to impediments.

"Whitewash your scoundrel-population; sweep out your abominable gutters
(if not in the name of God, ye brutish slatterns, then in the name of
Cholera and the Royal College of Surgeons): do these two things;--and
observe, much cheaper if you please!"--Well, here surely is an Evangel
of Freedom, and real Program of a new Era. What surliest misanthrope
would not find this world lovely, were these things done: scoundrels
whitewashed; some degree of scavengering upon the gutters; and at a
cheap rate, thirdly? That surely is an occasion on which, if ever
on any, the Genius of Reform may pipe all hands!--Poor old Genius of
Reform; bedrid this good while; with little but broken ballot-boxes, and
tattered stripes of Benthamee Constitutions lying round him; and on the
walls mere shadows of clothing-colonels, rates-in-aid, poor-law unions,
defunct potato and the Irish difficulty,--he does not seem long for this
world, piping to that effect?

Not the least disgusting feature of this Gospel according to the
Platform is its reference to religion, and even to the Christian
Religion, as an authority and mandate for what it does. Christian
Religion? Does the Christian or any religion prescribe love
of scoundrels, then? I hope it prescribes a healthy hatred of
scoundrels;--otherwise what am I, in Heaven's name, to make of it? Me,
for one, it will not serve as a religion on those strange terms. Just
hatred of scoundrels, I say; fixed, irreconcilable, inexorable enmity
to the enemies of God: this, and not love for them, and incessant
whitewashing, and dressing and cockering of them, must, if you look
into it, be the backbone of any human religion whatsoever. Christian
Religion! In what words can I address you, ye unfortunates, sunk in the
slushy ooze till the worship of mud-serpents, and unutterable Pythons
and poisonous slimy monstrosities, seems to you the worship of God? This
is the rotten carcass of Christianity; this mal-odorous phosphorescence
of post-mortem sentimentalism. O Heavens, from the Christianity of
Oliver Cromwell, wrestling in grim fight with Satan and his incarnate
Blackguardisms, Hypocrisies, Injustices, and legion of human and
infernal angels, to that of eloquent Mr. Hesperus Fiddlestring
denouncing capital punishments, and inculcating the benevolenc