and yet I cannot but think that it is they who are widely astray from
Christian belief and practice. 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. But
how strange it seems to me to hear proposed as a remedy the formalism
to which my friends here pin their faith! How often have I burned to
speak up among them, and ask--'What think ye, then, of Christ? Is He,
or is He not, our exemplar? Was not His life meant to exhibit to us the
ideal of the completest severance from the world which is consistent
with human existence? To follow Him, should we not, at least in the
spirit, cast off everything which may tempt us to consider life, as
life, precious?' We cannot worship both God and the world, and yet
nowadays Christians seem to make a merit of doing so. When I conceive a
religious revival, my thought does not in the least concern itself with
forms and ceremonies. I imagine another John the Baptist inciting the
people, with irresistible fervour, to turn from their sins--that is,
from the world and all its concerns--and to purify themselves by
Renunciation. What they call 'Progress,' I take to be the veritable
Kingdom of Antichrist. The world is evil, life is evil; only by
renunciation of the very desire for life can we fulfil the Christian
idea. What then of the civilisation which endeavours to make the world
more and more pleasant as a dwelling-place, life more and more
desirable for its own sake?

"And so I come to the contents of your own letter. You say you marvel
that these wretched people you visited do not, in a wild burst of
insurrection, overthrow all social order, and seize for themselves a
fair share of the world's goods. I marvel also;--all the more that
their very teachers in religion seem to lay such stress on the joys of
life. And yet what profit would a real Christian preache