? Your Bible talks of society, not as a herd,
but as a living tree, an organic individual body, a holy
brotherhood, and kingdom of God. And here is an idol which you have
set up instead of it!'

But the banker was deaf to all arguments. No doubt he had plenty,
for he was himself a just and generous--ay, and a God-fearing man in
his way, only he regarded Lancelot's young fancies as too visionary
to deserve an answer; which they most probably are; else, having
been broached as often as they have been, they would surely, ere
now, have provoked the complete refutation which can, no doubt, be
given to them by hundreds of learned votaries of so-called commerce.
And here I beg my readers to recollect that I am in no way
answerable for the speculations, either of Lancelot or any of his
acquaintances; and that these papers have been, from beginning to
end, as in name, so in nature, Yeast--an honest sample of the
questions, which, good or bad, are fermenting in the minds of the
young of this day, and are rapidly leavening the minds of the rising
generation. No doubt they are all as full of fallacies as possible,
but as long as the saying of the German sage stands true, that 'the
destiny of any nation, at any given moment, depends on the opinions
of its young men under five-and-twenty,' so long it must be worth
while for those who wish to preserve the present order of society to
justify its acknowledged evils somewhat, not only to the few young
men who are interested in preserving them, but also to the many who
are not.

Though, therefore, I am neither Plymouth Brother nor Communist, and
as thoroughly convinced as the newspapers can make me, that to
assert the duties of property is only to plot its destruction, and
that a community of goods must needs imply a community of wives (as
every one knows was the case with the apostolic Christians), I shall
take the liberty of narrating Lancelot's fanatical conduct, without
execratory comment, certain that he will still receive his just
reward of condemnation; and that, if I find facts, a sensible public
will find abhorrence for them. His behaviour was, indeed, most
singular; he absolutely refused a good commercial situation which
his uncle procured him. He did not believe in being 'cured by a
hair of the dog that bit him;' and he refused, also, the really
generous offers of the creditors, to allow him a sufficient
maintenance.

'No,' he sai