how the clergyman read out in church a prayer for her, specifying all
sickness, "in mind, body or estate". I was thinking only of my mother,
and the meaning of these words passed over my childish head; I did not
realize that the elderly plutocrat in black broadcloth who knelt in
the pew in front of me was invoking the aid of the Almighty so that
his tenements might bring in their rentals promptly; so that his
little "flyer" in cotton might prove successful; so that the children
in his mills might work with greater speed.

Somebody asked Voltaire if you could kill a cow by incantations, and
he answered, "Yes, if you use a little strychnine with it." And that
would seem to be the attitude of the present-day Anglican
church-member; he calls in the best physician he knows, he makes sure
that his plumbing is sound, and after that he thinks it can do no harm
to let the Lord have a chance. It makes the women happy, and after
all, there are a lot of things we don't yet know about the world. So
he repairs to the family pew, and recites over the venerable prayers,
and contributes his mite to the maintenance of an institution which,
fourteen Sundays every year, proclaims the terrifying menaces of the
Athanasian Creed:

Whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary
that he hold the Catholick faith. Which faith, except one do
keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish
everlastingly.

For the benefit of the uninitiated reader, it may be explained that
the "Catholick faith" here referred to is not the Roman Catholic, but
that of the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of
America. This creed of the ancient Alexandrian lays down the truth