and wine.

I went over all the cases, and I found the key fitted so far.
The fact that Swinburne was irritated at the unhappiness of Christians
and yet more irritated at their happiness was easily explained.
It was no longer a complication of diseases in Christianity,
but a complication of diseases in Swinburne. The restraints
of Christians saddened him simply because he was more hedonist
than a healthy man should be. The faith of Christians angered
him because he was more pessimist than a healthy man should be.
In the same way the Malthusians by instinct attacked Christianity;
not because there is anything especially anti-Malthusian about
Christianity, but because there is something a little anti-human
about Malthusianism.

Nevertheless it could not, I felt, be quite true that Christianity
was merely sensible and stood in the middle. There was really
an element in it of emphasis and even frenzy which had justified
the secularists in their superficial criticism. It might be wise,
I began more and more to think that it was wise, but it was not
merely worldly wise; it was not merely temperate and respectable.
Its fierce crusaders and meek saints might balance each other;
still, the crusaders were very fierce and the saints were very meek,
meek beyond all decency. Now, it was just at this point of the
speculation that I remembered my thoughts about the martyr and
the suicide. In that matter there had been this combination between
two almost insane positions which yet somehow amounted to sanity.
This was just such another contradiction; and this I had already
found to be true. This was exactly one of the paradoxes in which
sceptics found the creed wrong; and in this I had found it right.