Stukely Culbrett.'

'I 've heard him,' sighed the colonel. 'He calls the Protestant clergy
the social police of the English middle-class. Those are the things he
lets fly. I have heard that man say that the Church stands to show the
passion of the human race for the drama. He said it in my presence. And
there 's a man who calls himself a Tory

You have rather too much of that playing at grudges and dislikes at
Steynham, with squibs, nicknames, and jests at things that--well, that
our stability is bound up in. I hate squibs.'

'And I,' said Beauchamp. Some shadow of a frown crossed him; but Stukely
Culbrett's humour seemed to be a refuge. 'Protestant parson-not clergy,'
he corrected the colonel. 'Can't you hear Mr. Culbrett, Cecilia? The
Protestant parson is the policeman set to watch over the respectability
of the middle-class. He has sharp eyes for the sins of the poor. As for
the rich, they support his church; they listen to his sermon--to set an
example: discipline, colonel. You discipline the tradesman, who's afraid
of losing your custom, and the labourer, who might be deprived of his
bread. But the people? It's put down to the wickedness of human nature
that the parson has not got hold of the people. The parsons have lost
them by senseless Conservatism, because they look to the Tories for the
support of their Church, and let the religion run down the gutters. And
how many thousands have you at work in the pulpit every Sunday? I'm told
the Dissenting ministers have some vitality.'

Colonel Halkett shrugged with disgust at the mention of Dissenters.

'And those thirty or forty thousand, colonel, call the men that do the