The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 216: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AN EXPLOSION 189 characters, in order to conceal the most depraved courses and the most dissolute lives. Society must be protected against such men, true religion shall not be outraged with impunity. I therefore sentence you each to three months’ imprisonment as rogues and vagabonds. Clear the court! ”’ The Reverend Mr. Sneaksby threw up his arms in dismay, while Brother Paxwax fell on his knees and began to blubber like a schoolboy. But the magistrate was inexorable; and the two influential leaders of the New Lights were lugged out of the office and locked up in a cell until all the cases of the day were disposed of. They were then conveyed in a hackney- coach to the House of Correction, where we shall leave them to deplore their unhappy fate and curse the day on which they undertook to bring Ann Jones to a state of grace. But ere we conclude this chapter we must avail ourselves of the opportunity to declare that, in depicting such charac- ters as Sneaksby and Paxwax, we aim only at exposing the maw-worms and the hypocritical reprobates who make a trade of religion; and that we have never harboured the _ slightest intention of ridiculing or maligning the honest, sincere, and conscientious pastors who do their duty to their flock. We are well aware that in the Dissenting ministry there are thousands of excellent, amiable, and truly pious men; and we therefore delineate Mr. Sneaksby as a type of the exceptions to the rule, and not of the class itself. We will even declare our positive conviction that for morality, useful learning, and disinterested zeal, the Dissenting minis- ters are incomparably superior to the bigoted, narrow- minded, selfish, and dissipated clergy of the Established Church. GomiilGaooks (S(O)