Children of God;--it is an immense pretension!--and how are we to
justify it? By the works which we do, and the words which we speak. And
the work which we collective children of God do, our grand centre of
life, our _city_ which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London!
London, with its unutterable external hideousness, and with its internal
canker of _publice egestas, privatim opulentia_,[406]--to use the words
which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome,--unequalled in the
world! The word, again, which we children of God speak, the voice which
most hits our collective thought, the newspaper with the largest
circulation in England, nay, with the largest circulation in the whole
world, is the _Daily Telegraph_![407] I say that when our religious
organizations--which I admit to express the most considerable effort
after perfection that our race has yet made--land us in no better result
than this, it is high time to examine carefully their idea of
perfection, to see whether it does not leave out of account sides and
forces of human nature which we might turn to great use; whether it
would not be more operative if it were more complete.
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