'
Or they may answer them--they will be more likely to answer them in
England just now, because there are those who will teach them so to
answer--in another, but a scarcely less terrible tone. 'Yes, there
is a God; and he is angry with us. And why? Because there is
something, or some one, in the nation which he abhors--heretics,
papists'--what not--any man, or class of men, on whom cowardly and
terrified ignorance may happen to fix as a scapegoat, and cry,
'These are the guilty! We have allowed these men, indulged them;
the accursed thing is among us, therefore the face of the Lord is
turned from us. We will serve him truly henceforth--and hate those
whom he hates. We will be orthodox henceforth--and prove our
orthodoxy by persecuting the heretic.'
Does this seem to you extravagant, impossible? Remember, my
friends, that within the last century Lord George Gordon's riots
convulsed London. Can you give me any reason why Lord George
Gordon's riots cannot occur again? Believe me, the more you study
history, the more you study human nature, the more possible it will
seem to you. It is not, I believe, infidelity, but fanaticism,
which England has to fear just now. The infidelity of England is
one of mere doubt and denial, a scepticism; which is in itself weak
and self-destructive.
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