?«
    »One or two. We have his lecture on Altruism.«
    »I happen to know it. There are good things in it, I think. But I dislike
his modern interpretation of old principles.«
    »You think it dangerous?«
    He no longer regarded her frankly, and in the consciousness of her look upon
him he knit his brows.
    »I think it both dangerous and offensive. Not a few clergymen nowadays, who
imagine themselves free from the letter and wholly devoted to spirit, are doing
their best in the cause of materialism. They surrender the very points at issue
between religion and worldliness. They are so blinded by a vague humanitarian
impulse as to make the New Testament an oracle of popular Radicalism.«
    Sidwell looked up.
    »I never quite understood, Mr. Peak, how you regard Radicalism. You think it
opposed to all true progress?«
    »Utterly, as concerns any reasonable limit of time.«
    »Buckland, as you know, maintains that spiritual progress is only possible
by this way.«
    »I can't venture to contradict him,« said Godwin; »for it may be that
advance is destined only to come after long retrogression and anarchy. Perhaps
the way does lie through such miseries. But we can't foresee that with
certainty, and those of us who hate the present tendency of things must needs
assert their hatred as strongly as possible, seeing that we may have a more
hopeful part to play than seems likely.«
    »I like that view,« replied Sidwell, in an undertone.
    »My belief,« pursued Godwin, with an earnestness very agreeable to himself,
for he had reached the subject on which he could speak honestly, »is that an
instructed man can only hold views such as your brother's - hopeful views of the
immediate future - if he has never been brought into close contact with the
lower classes. Buckland doesn't't know the people for whom he pleads.«
    »You think them so degraded?«
    »It is impossible, without seeming inhumanly scornful, to give a just
account of their ignorance and baseness. The two things, speaking generally, go
together. Of the ignorant, there are very few indeed who can think purely or
aspiringly. You, of course, object the teaching of Christianity; but the lowly
and the humble of whom it speaks scarcely exist, scarcely can exist, in our day
and country. A ludicrous pretence of education is banishing every form of native
simplicity. In the large towns, the populace sink deeper and deeper