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"