'It's perfectly true,' said Mr Clinton.
Mr Evans's mind was too truly pious for a wicked expletive to cross it; but a bad man expressing the curate's feeling would have said that Mr Clinton was a damned fool.
'Well, don't you see that it's a perfectly ridiculous and unheard-of thing?' he asked emphatically.
'"Sell all that thou 'ast, and distribute unto the poor." It is in the Gospel of St Luke. Do you know it?'
'Of course I know it, but, naturally, these things aren't to be taken quite literally.'
'It is clearly written. What makes you say it is not to be taken literally?'
Mr Evans shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
'Why, don't you see it would be impossible? The world couldn't go on. How do you expect your children to live if you give this money away?'
'"Look at the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these."'....
'Oh, my dear sir, you make me lose my patience. You're full of the hell-fire platitudes of a park spouter, and you think it's religion.... I tell you all these things are allegorical. Don't you understand that? You mustn't carry them out to the letter. They are not meant to be taken in that way.'