"If we are to do any good we must be a closely united body, and must
be sharply divided from the laity. Also we must be free from those
ties which a wife and children involve. I can hardly express the
horror with which I am filled by seeing English priests living in what
I can only designate as 'open matrimony.' It is deplorable. The priest
must be absolutely sexless- if not in practice, yet at any rate in
theory, absolutely- and that, too, by a theory so universally accepted
that none shall venture to dispute it."
"But," said Ernest, "has not the Bible already told people what they
ought and ought not to do, and is it not enough for us to insist on
what can be found here, and let the rest alone?"
"If you begin with the Bible," was the rejoinder, "you are three
parts gone on the road to infidelity, and will go the other part
before you know where you are. The Bible is not without its value to
us the clergy, but for the laity it is a stumbling-block which
cannot be taken out of their way too soon or too completely. Of
course, I mean on the supposition that they read it, which, happily,
they seldom do. If people read the Bible as the ordinary British
churchman or churchwoman reads it, it is harmless enough; but if
they read it with any care- which we should assume they will if we
give it them at all- it is fatal to them.
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