The other evening the clergyman dined with us, and throughout the meal discussions of the rubric alternated with talk about delicacies of the table! That the rubric should be so interesting amazes me, but that an earnest Christian should think it compatible with his religion to show the slightest concern in what he shall eat or drink is unspeakably strange to me.

Surely, if Christianity means anything it means asceticism.

My experience of the world is so slight.

I believe this is the first clergyman I ever met in private life.

Surely they cannot all be thus?
"I knew well how far the world at large had passed from true Christianity; that has been impressed upon me from my childhood.