| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 12547 |
| QUOTATION: | We have had nineteen centuries of ecclesiastical teaching and preaching, and what do we see in our midst? Tens of thousands of honest and industrious poor begging—not for bread, but for labour; thousands of malicious loafers looking evilly aslant at wealth; myriads of fallen women pacing the streets and alleys of our towns that they may degrade for temporary hire, to men more debased than themselves, those frail bodies which should be “temples of the living God.” We see millions toiling early and late for the mere necessaries of life. We see an inordinate desire for wealth and luxury, to the exclusion of duty and of pity and consideration for others. We see the wealthy and gifted too often abandoned to sensuality and frivolity. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923), U.S. journalist, lecturer, and social reform advocate; relocated to England. Talks and Essays, vol. 1, ch. 7 (1897).
Reflecting on nineteenth-century London. |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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