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“AN EMPTY POCKET'S THE WORST
OF CRIMES.”
To be sure! Nothing at all like it! A man may get his
money in whatever way he pleases; be guilty of usury, extortion,
anything, so that his coat is fine and his boots glossy.
I tell you what, — there is nothing like velvet to sanctify religion.
Now, any common-sense individual can't help seeing that there 's
no possibility of John the coachman, who stands on the church-steps
holding the horses and congealing in his new livery, being
in as religious a frame of mind as his master, who sits in his
comfortable, damask-covered pew, kneels on his embroidered hassock,
and says amen with such an unction.
It would be the death of me even to suggest that John the
coachman gets just about as good a knowledge of the sermon as
his master; that the cold, and the horses, and the handsome
lady's maid over the way, don't any more occupy his attention
than the rise in stocks, the prosperity of his children, and the
sense of his position as a family-man, occupy John the coachman's
master, kneeling on the hassock, or sitting in his cushioned
pew. I must confess one question does pop into my head,
rather provokingly, — whether there is one Gospel for the poor
and another for the rich, — whether it is a Christian duty for
John's master to go to church, and John to stay outside.
I should like so much to know which set that passage was
meant for where it says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand.”
I guess that means the poor folks. It can't be that rich people
have any such disagreeable duties to perform as faith and repentance.
Sackcloth and ashes would n't look well outside of velvet and
embroidery. I do believe rich folks ought to raise John's salary,
though, when, besides standing out in the cold till the tip-ends of
his fingers get irreligiously lukewarm, he has to do all their
repenting for them
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