"I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability."

"Thy damnation slumbereth not."

"Sorrow, I baptize thee in the name of the Father,and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost"

"Then I don't like you! And I'll never come to your church no more!"

"Perhaps I don't know the Lord as yet."

"Perhaps somebody in the house is in love..."

"Three Leahs to get one Rachel."

"Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, How curious are you to me!"

"Society is hopelessly snobbish."

"She was sort of a celestial person...classical divinities."

Alec tells outright his path in life.  Foreshadowing...

Tess will be followed by her imposed sin wherever she goes!

The irony is that Sorrow is the baby born out of Alec's raping Tess, embodying her feelings of the situation, but yet she baptizes it so as to keep it from equal damnation as her mother.

Tess is beginning to lose her religion, parallel with her loss of virginity.

After all that had happened, she is falling further and further away from religion.

Close, as it turns out four are in love with Angel.

Biblical allusion!

Literary allusion to Walt Whitman

Here the author speaks through his characters to voice his opinion of society.

But was not Tess the one unclean in society's eyes?  What would Angle think if he knew?