"
Mr. Vialls screwed up his lips and frowned at the table-cloth, but
said nothing.
"Our task nowadays," pursued the Mayor, with confidence, "is to
preserve the purity of home. Our homes are being invaded by
dangerous influences we must resist. The family should be a bulwark
of virtue--of all the virtues--holiness, charity, peace."
He lingered on the last word, and his gaze became abstracted.
"Very true, very true indeed!" cried the clergyman. "For one thing,
how careful a parent should be with regard to the periodical
literature which is allowed to enter his house, This morning, in a
home I will not mention, my eye fell upon a weekly paper which I
should have thought perfectly sound in its teaching; yet, behold,
there was an article of which the whole purport was to _excuse_ the
vices of the lower classes on the ground of their poverty and their
temptations. Could anything be more immoral, more rotten in
principle? _There_ is the spirit we have to contend against--a
spirit of accursed lenity in morals, often originating in so-called
scientific considerations! Evil is evil--vice, vice--the devil
is the devil--be circumstances what they may. I do not care to
make mention of such monstrous aberrations as, for instance, the
attacks we are occasionally forced to hear on the law of marriage.
That is the mere reek of the bottomless pit, palpable to all.
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