r my terms.
What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike
as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons
ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all
of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in
the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't
make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object
is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and
respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable
neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the
Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I
should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to
speak about them." He thought of White.

"Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I
can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for
ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has
always been put to the best of purposes."

"I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you
bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I
mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide.
I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and
charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons,
and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving
up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in
Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of
religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so
unpopular."

"Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the
world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly
people in it."

"But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow
as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually
laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church
ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other
communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint
with the age, who remained single in the Church of England."

Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so
monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help
laughing out. "I really ca