"Why were you not at mass on Sunday, my children? You are wrong, the Church alone can save you. Now promise me to come next Sunday."
Maheu, after staring at him, went on pacing heavily, without a word. It was Maheude who replied:
"To mass, sir? What for? Isn't the good God making fun of us? Look here! what has my little girl there done to Him, to be shaking with fever? Hadn't we enough misery, that He had to make her ill too, just when I can't even give her a cup of warm gruel?"
Then the priest stood and talked at length. He spoke of the strike, this terrible wretchedness, this exasperated rancour of famine, with the ardour of a missionary who is preaching to savages for the glory of religion. He said that the Church was with the poor, that she would one day cause justice to triumph by
