curiosity.

"Have I not, then, you will ask, the courage of my opinions? But
indeed my religious opinions are so strangely different from those
which prevail here, that I fear it would be impossible to make my
thoughts clear to these good people. They would scarcely esteem me a
Christian; 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