“Does nobody take any interest in archæology?”
“Nobody within five miles. Sinclair cares nothing about it: he is Low Church, as I have told you.”
“Why does that prevent his caring about it?”
“Being Low Church he is narrow-minded, or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, being narrow-minded he is Low Church. He is an indifferent scholar, and occupies himself with his religious fancies and those of his flock. He can reign supreme there. He is not troubled in that department by the difficulties of learning and is not exposed to criticism or contradiction.”
“I suppose it is a fact of the greatest importance to him that he and his parishioners have souls to be saved, and that in comparison with that fact others are immaterial.”
“We all believe we have souls to be saved. Having set forth God’s way of saving them we have done all we ought to do. God’s way is not sufficient for Sinclair. He enlarges it out of his own head, and instructs his silly, ignorant friends to do the same. He will not be satisfied with what God and the Church tell him.”
“God and the Church, according to Dr. Midleton’s account, have not been very effective in Langborough.”
“They hear from me, madam, all I am commissioned to say, and if they do not attend I cannot help it.”
“I have read your paper in the Archæological Transactions on the history of Langborough Abbey. It excited my imagination, which is never excited in reading ordinary histories. In your essay I am in company with the men who actually lived in the time of Henry the Second and Henry the Eighth. I went over the ruins again, and found them much more beautiful after I understood something about them.”
“Yes: exactly what I have said a hundred times: knowledge is indispensable.”