“If they are not better,” put in Jerry, “it is because they are not religious. You might as well say that our country’s laws are not good because some people break them. If a man gives way to his temper, and speaks evil of his neighbor, and does not pay his debts, he is not religious, I don’t care how much he goes to church. If some men are shams and humbugs, that does not make religion untrue. Real religion is the best and truest thing in the world, and the only thing that can make a man really happy or make the world we live in any better.”

“If religion was good for anything,” said Jones, “it would prevent your religious people from making us work on Sundays, as you know many of them do, and that’s why I say religion is nothing but a sham; why, if it was not for the church and chapel-goers it would be hardly worth while our coming out on a Sunday. But they have their privileges, as they call them, and I go without. I shall expect them to answer for my soul, if I can’t get a chance of saving it.”

Several of the men applauded this, till Jerry said: