He declined to go to afternoon church. This is not held to be de rigueur even in a parson's house, unless it be among certain of the strictly low-church clergymen. A very high churchman may ask you to attend at four o'clock of a winter morning, but he will not be grievously offended if, on a Sunday afternoon, you prefer your arm-chair, and book—probably of sermons; but that is between you and your conscience.
They dined early, and in the evening, Bertram and his host walked out. Hitherto they had had but little opportunity of conversation, and Bertram longed to talk to some one of what was within his breast. On this occasion, however, he failed. Conversation will not always go exactly as one would have it.
"I was glad to see you at church to-day," said the parson. "To tell you the truth, I did not expect it. I hope it was not intended as a compliment to me."
"I rather fear it was, Arthur."
"You mean that you went because you did not like to displease us by staying away?"
"Something like it," said Bertram, affecting to laugh. "I do not want your mother and sisters, or you either, to regard me as an ogre. In England, at any rate in the country in England, one is an ogre if one doesn't go to church. It does not much matter, I believe, what one does when one is there; so long as one is quiet, and lets the parson have his say."
"There is nothing so easy as ridicule, especially in matters of religion."
"Quite true. But then it is again true that it is very hard to laugh at anything that is not in some point ridiculous."
"And God's worship is ridiculous?"
"No; but any pretence of worshipping God is so. And as it is but a step from the ridiculous to the sublime, and as the true worship of God is probably the highest sublimity to which man can reach; so, perhaps, is he never so absolutely absurd, in such a bathos of the ridiculous, as when he pretends to do so."