"But you are not yet a man! Would you be a priest of the Most High?
"You are not yet redeemed, nor are these others with you redeemed, although you make bold to say so in the name of the Redeemer.
"Did your Saviour when upon earth wear cloth of silver and of gold?
"There is no redemption yet—neither for you nor for any of yours. The time is not come for the wearing of garments of gold.
"Mock not, nor slander. Your ostentation is a travesty of the Most High, and a defamation of your Saviour.
"Do you esteem the kingdom of God a trifle, that you array yourself and rejoice, while the world still lies in despair and in shackles?
"So plays a little girl with a doll, and calls herself a mother. She tosses and pets and prinks her little one, but it is all wood and paint and bran. And the real mother smiles—she who knows the anguish and the gladness.
"But you abandon the naked, living child for the bedizened doll. And the mother sheds tears of blood.
"Like peacocks, you strut through your marble churches, glittering in tinsel; but you let the kingdom of God lie like an uncleansed babe upon unclean linen—naked and languishing.
"And the Devil delights in your churches, your masses, and prayers and psalms—your treasure and fine linen; for the child lies naked at your back door, with the dogs, and it wails for its mother.