OR let him go to Edinburgh, the "modern Athens," of which Scotsmen
speak with pride, and in buildings from whose roofs a bowman might strike
the spires of twenty churches he will find human beings living as he would
not keep his meanest dog. Let him toil up the stairs of one of those monstrous
buildings, let him enter one of those "dark houses," let him close
the door, and in the blackness think what life must be in such a place. Then
let him try the reduction to iniquity. And if he go to that good charity
(but, alas! how futile is Charity without Justice!) where little children
are kept while their mothers are at work, and children are fed who would
otherwise go hungry, he may see infants whose limbs are shrunken from want
of nourishment. Perhaps they may tell him, as they told me, of that little
girl, barefooted, ragged, and hungry, who, when they gave her bread, raised
her eyes and clasped her hands, and thanked our Father in Heaven for His
bounty to her. They who told me that never dreamed, I think, of its terrible
meaning. But I ask the Duke of Argyll, did that little child, thankful for
that poor dole, get what our Father provided for her? Is He so niggard? If
not, what is it, who is it, that stands, between such children and our Father's
bounty? If it be an institution, is it not our duty to God and to our neighbor
to rest not till we destroy it? If it be a man, were it not better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the depths
of the sea? — The Reduction to Iniquity (a reply to the Duke of Argyll),
The Nineteenth Century, July, 1884
LANDLORDS must elect to try their case either by human law or by moral
law. If they say that land is rightly property because made so by human law,
they cannot charge those who would change that law with advocating robbery.
But if they charge that such change in human law would be robbery, then they
must show that land is rightfully property irrespective of human law. — The
Reduction to Iniquity (a reply to the Duke of Argyll), The Nineteenth Century,
July, 1884 ... go to "Gems from George"