and invaded even the house of God.  We have worshiped the golden calf.  We have bowed down to Moloch.  We have consented to live under a will that was base and cruel, in all its motives and ends.  We have been so dazzled by a great worldly success, that we have ceased to inquire into its sources.  We have done daily obeisance to one who neither feared God nor regarded man.  We have become so pervaded with his spirit, so demoralized by his foul example, that when he held out even a false opportunity to realize something of his success, we made no inquisition of facts or processes, and were willing to share with him in gains that his whole history would have taught us were more likely to be unfairly than fairly won.  I mourn for your losses, for you can poorly afford to suffer them; but to have that man forever removed from us; to be released from his debasing influence; to be untrammeled in our action and in the development of our resources; to be free men and free women, and to become content with our lot and with such gains as we may win in a legitimate way, is worth all that it has cost us.  We needed a severe lesson, and we have had it.  It falls heavily upon some who are innocent.  Let us, in kindness to these, find a balm for our own trials.  And, now, let us not degrade ourselves by hot words and impotent resentments.  They can do no good.  Let us be men—­Christian men, with detestation of the rascality from which we suffer, but with pity for the guilty man, who, sooner or later, will certainly meet the punishment he so richly deserves.  ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ saith the Lord.”

The people of Sevenoaks had never before heard Mr. Snow make such a speech as this.  It was a manly confession, and a manly admonition.  His attenuated form was straight and almost majestic, his pale face was flushed, his tones were deep and strong, and they saw that one man, at least, breathed more freely, now that the evil genius of the place was gone.  It was a healthful speech.  It was an appeal to their own conscious history, and to such remains of manhood as they possessed, and they were strengthened by it.

A series of the most objurgatory resolutions had been prepared for the occasion, yet the writer saw that it would be better to keep them in his pocket.  The meeting was at a stand, when little Dr. Radcliffe, who was sore to his heart’s core with his petty loss, jumped up and declared that he had a series of resolutions to offer.  There was a world of unconscious humor in his freak,—­unconscious, because his resolutions were intended to express his spite, not only against Mr. Belcher, but against the villagers, including Mr. Snow.  He began by reading in his piping voice the first resolution passed at the previous meeting which so pleasantly dismissed the proprietor to the commercial metropolis of the country.  The reading of this resolution was so sweet a sarcasm on the proceedings of that occasion, that it was received with peals of laughter and deafening cheers, and as he went bitterly on, from resolution to resolution, raising his voice to overtop the jargon, the scene became too ludicrous for description.  The resolutions, which never had any sincerity in them, were such a confirmation of all that Mr. Snow had said, and such a comment on their own duplicity and moral debasement, that there was nothing left for them but to break up and go home.