How we cite our quotes: (Act.Line)
Quote #7
Have you ever been in love with Poverty, like St. Francis? Have you ever been in love with Dirt, like St. Simeon? Have you ever been in love with disease and suffering, like our nurses and philanthropists? Such passions are not virtues, but the most unnatural of all the vices. This love of the common people may please an earl's granddaughter and a university professor; but I have been a common man and a poor man; and it has no romance for me. Leave it to the poor to pretend that poverty is a blessing: leave it to the coward to make a religion of his cowardice by preaching humility: we know better than that. We three must stand together above the common people: how else can we help their children to climb up beside us? Barbara must belong to us, not to the Salvation Army. (2.285)
Once again, Andrew preaches that morals and religion should be adopted and shaped according to one's circumstances. Although he (kind of) admits that it's okay for some people to revere poverty and humility, he does not think that he or Dolly (or his daughter) should have any part of that, since they "know better." Their religion, he contends, has to result in getting power that they can then use to help others.
Quote #8
How are we to feed them? I can't talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. [Almost breaking down] It's frightful. (2.329)
Barbara actually seems halfway to her father's point of view here, since he argues that bribing people with food/bread isn't actually an honest conversion. As Barbara herself says here, how can anyone concentrate on religion when they're hungry?
Quote #9
Look at poor little Jenny Hill, the Salvation lassie! she would think you were laughing at her if you asked her to stand up in the street and teach grammar or geography or mathematics or even drawing room dancing; but it never occurs to her to doubt that she can teach morals and religion. You are all alike, you respectable people. You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter; but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! what a world! (3.125)
We might sometimes find Andrew's views regarding power and morality a bit hard to swallow or even cynical at times, but he makes an excellent point here: How is it that people are so willing to claim knowledge of what constitutes morals and religion, to the point of being able to teach others? It's an interesting question that we don't ask enough.