“Yes,” I insisted, “you should go to the head of your church for moral counsel, and—for economic advice you should go to the professor of economics in——”
He stopped me, facing about. “Professor!” he echoed, and he didn’t reflect my tone.
I was serious. I wanted to get something from him. I wanted to know why our practical men do not go to these professions for help, as they go to lawyers and engineers. And this man had given time and money to the university in his town and to his church, as I reminded him.
“You support colleges and churches, you and your kind do,” I said. “What for?”
“For women and children,” he snapped from his distance.
By Savonarola
(Italian religious reformer, 1452-1498; hanged and burned by his enemies)
But dost thou know what I would tell thee? In the primitive church, the chalices were of wood, the prelates of gold. In these days the church hath chalices of gold and prelates of wood.
The Preacher
(From “The Canterbury Tales”)