s presumptuous to pry into God's secret
counsels, unless, perhaps, some fanatic should inform you that the
cholera has been drawn down on the poor by the endowment of Maynooth
by the rich.'

'It is most fearful, indeed, to think that these diseases should be
confined to the poor--that a man should be exposed to cholera,
typhus, and a host of attendant diseases, simply because he is born
into the world an artisan; while the rich, by the mere fact of
money, are exempt from such curses, except when they come in contact
with those whom they call on Sunday "their brethren," and on week
days the "masses."

'Thank Heaven that you do see that,--that in a country calling
itself civilised and Christian, pestilence should be the peculiar
heritage of the poor! It is past all comment.'

'And yet are not these pestilences a judgment, even on them, for
their dirt and profligacy?'

'And how should they be clean without water? And how can you wonder
if their appetites, sickened with filth and self-disgust, crave
after the gin-shop for temporary strength, and then for temporary
forgetfulness? Every London doctor knows that I speak the truth;
would that every London preacher would tell that truth from his
pulpit!'

'Then would you too say, that God punishes one class for the sins of
another?'

'Some would say,' answered Lancelot, half aside, 'that He may be
punishing them for not demanding their RIGHT to live like human
beings, to all those social circumstances which shall not make their
children's life one long disease. But are not these pestilences a
judgment on the rich, too, in the truest sense of the word? Are
they not the broad, unmistakable seal to God's opinion of a state of
society which confesses its economic relations to be so utterly
rotten and confused, that it actually cannot afford to save yearly
millions of pounds' worth of the materials of food, not to mention
thousands of human lives? Is not every man who allows such things
hastening the ruin of the society in which he lives, by helping to
foster the indignation and fury of its victims? Look at that group
of stunted, haggard artisans, who are passing us. What if one day
they should call to account the landlords whose coveteousness and
ignorance make their dwellings hells on earth?'

By this time they had reached the artist's house.

Luke refused to enter. . . . 'He had done with this world, and the
painters of this wor