Her every mode of thinking and acting was of
a levelling commonplace. With her, love was liking, duty something
unpleasant--generally to other people, and kindness patronage. But
she was just in money matters, and her son too had every intention
of being worthy of his hire, though wherein lay the value of the
labour with which he thought to counterpoise that hire, it were
hard to say.
CHAPTER XXVII: THE PREACHER
The sermon Mr Graham heard at the chapel that Sunday morning in
Kentish Town was not of an elevating, therefore not of a strengthening
description. The pulpit was at that time in offer to the highest
bidder--in orthodoxy, that is, combined with popular talent.
The first object of the chapel's existence--I do not say in the
minds of those who built it, for it was an old place, but certainly
in the minds of those who now directed its affairs--was not to
save its present congregation, but to gather a larger--ultimately
that they might be saved, let us hope, but primarily that the
drain upon the purses of those who were responsible for its rent
and other outlays, might be lessened. Mr Masquar, therefore, to
whom the post was a desirable one, had been mainly anxious that
morning to prove his orthodoxy, and so commend his services. Not
that in those days one heard so much of the dangers of heterodoxy:
that monster was as yet but growling far off in the jungles of Germany;
but certain whispers had been abroad concerning the preacher which
he thought desirable to hush, especially as they were founded in
truth.
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