human
Well, Mr. Fantom, said he gayly, as he opened the door,
gpt
human
Because, said Fantom,
gpt
I was engaged, sir, in a far nobler project than putting out a fire in a little thatched cottage. Sir, I was contriving to put out a fire too; a conflagration of a far more dreadful kind--a fire, sir, in the extinction of which universal man is concerned--I was contriving a scheme to extinguish the fires of the Inquisition.
human
Why, man, they don't blaze that I know of, retorted Trueman.
gpt
I own, that of all the abominable engines which the devil ever invented to disgrace religion and plague mankind, that Inquisition was the very worst. But I do not believe popery has ventured at these diabolical tricks since the earthquake at Lisbon, so that a bucket of real water, carried to the real fire at Jenkins's cottage, would have done more good than a wild plan to put out an imaginary flame which no longer burns. And let me tell you, sir, dreadful as that evil was, God can send his judgments on other sins besides superstition; so it behoves us to take heed of the other extreme or we may have our earthquakes too.
human
The hand of God is not shortened, sir, that it can not destroy, any more than it can not save. In the meantime, I must repeat it; you and I are rather called upon to serve a neighbor from perishing in the flames of his house, just under our own window, than to write about the fires of the Inquisition; which, if fear, or shame, or the restoration of common sense had not already put out, would have hardly received a check from such poor hands as you and I.
gpt
Sir, said Fantom,
human
Jenkins is an impertinent fellow; and I owe him a grudge, because he says he had rather forfeit the favor of the best master in England than work in my garden on a Sunday. And when I ordered him to read the Age of Reason, instead of going to church, he refused to work for me at all, with some impertinent hint about God and Mammon.
gpt
Oh, did he so? said Mr. Trueman.
human
Now I _will_ stand godfather to his child, and made him a handsome present into the bargain. Indeed, Mr. Fantom, a man must be a philosopher with a vengeance, if when he sees a house on fire, he stays to consider whether the owner has offended him. Oh, Mr. Fantom, I will forgive you still, if you will produce me, out of all your philosophy, such a sentence as 'Love your enemy--do good to them that hate you--if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;' I will give up the blessed gospel for the Age of Reason, if you will only bring me one sentiment equivalent to this.