The Foster-Sisters by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

MR. WESLEY was right in saying that Mr. Cheriton might make up his mind to suffer persecution. He was also right in saying that religion was at a low ebb in the Church of England at that time.

With some most honorable exceptions, pastors seemed to content themselves with a perfunctory performance of such duties as they could not get rid of. They read prayers on a Sunday, when they could not afford a curate at less than a man-cook's wages to do it for them, preached now and then a moral essay, of which the substance was pretty much poor little Betty's-that it was pretty to be good and naughty to be bad-and too often spent the rest of the Lord's day in idle amusements, especially in card playing and light reading.