“The silver trumpets rang across the Dome;
The people knelt upon the ground with awe;
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.

“Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head;
In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.

“My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea;
And sought in vain for any place of rest: 
’Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’”

* Oscar Wilde, one of the lords of language of the
nineteenth century of the Christian Era.

The audience was agitated, but unresponsive.  Yet Bishop Morehouse was not aware of it.  He held steadily on his way.

“And so I say to the rich among you, and to all the rich, that bitterly you oppress the Master’s lambs.  You have hardened your hearts.  You have closed your ears to the voices that are crying in the land—­the voices of pain and sorrow that you will not hear but that some day will be heard.  And so I say—­”

But at this point H. H. Jones and Philip Ward, who had already risen from their chairs, led the Bishop off the platform, while the audience sat breathless and shocked.

Ernest laughed harshly and savagely when he had gained the street.  His laughter jarred upon me.  My heart seemed ready to burst with suppressed tears.

“He has delivered his message,” Ernest cried.  “The manhood and the deep-hidden, tender nature of their Bishop burst out, and his Christian audience, that loved him, concluded that he was crazy!  Did you see them leading him so solicitously from the platform?  There must have been laughter in hell at the spectacle.”

“Nevertheless, it will make a great impression, what the Bishop did and said to-night,” I said.

“Think so?” Ernest queried mockingly.

“It will make a sensation,” I asserted.  “Didn’t you see the reporters scribbling like mad while he was speaking?”

“Not a line of which will appear in to-morrow’s papers.”

“I can’t believe it,” I cried.

“Just wait and see,” was the answer.  “Not a line, not a thought that he uttered.  The daily press?  The daily suppressage!”

“But the reporters,” I objected.  “I saw them.”

“Not a word that he uttered will see print.  You have forgotten the editors.  They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain.  Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established.  The Bishop’s utterance was a violent assault upon the established morality.  It was heresy.  They led him from the platform to prevent him from uttering more heresy.  The newspapers will purge his heresy in the oblivion of silence.  The press of the United States?  It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class.  Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.