Fortune-tellers are punished with from six months' to two years' imprisonment. How is it the law allows schemers to found a "Lord's Treasury" by promising immortality to the geese who bring their money to it? It looks as if, in America, as in England, swindling may be practised with impunity in the name of religion.
One meets with just as many cases of the adroit blending of the worship of God and Mammon.
A publisher, who is not above making money by the sale of books stolen from English and French authors, is yet godly enough to build a church with part of the proceeds.
An immense quantity of literary piracies issues from another firm, whose warehouse rejoices in the appellation of "Bible House."
A popular preacher sells his church sittings by auction.
Another furnishes to a syndicate advance sheets of the sermons he preaches on Sunday; so that the principal papers throughout the United States are able to furnish their readers, on Monday morning, with the full discourse delivered the day before in Brooklyn.
During my stay in America, a well-known evangelist published a volume of sermons with the following preface: "God has been kind enough to own the words when I spoke them. I hope He will give His blessing to the book, now that the same words appear in print." Many books are published in France with the remark, "A work approved of by Mgr. the Archbishop of——" A volume, advertised as having been owned and blessed by the Lord Himself, ought to have a wild sale.
Sabbatarian hypocrisy is as flourishing in the eastern States of America as in England and Scotland.