As I said, look about you and you will find that everything is as I told you: the change from Heathendom consists in everything remaining unchanged but having assumed the predicate "Christian." MODERN RELIGIOUS GUARANTEES (No. V, 8) In times long, long past people looked at matters in this fashion: it was demanded of him who would be a teacher of Christianity that his life should be a guarantee for the teachings he proclaimed. This idea was abandoned long ago, the world having become wiser and more serious. It has learned to set little store by these illiberal and sickly notions of personal responsibility, having learned to look for purely objective ends. The demand is made now of the teacher that his life should guarantee that what he has to say is entertaining and dramatic stuff, amusing, and purely objective. Some examples. Suppose you wanted to speak about Christianity, that is, the Christianity of the New Testament which expresses preference for the single state--and suppose you yourself are unmarried: why, my dear man! you ought not to speak on this subject, because your congregation might think that you meant what you said and become disquieted, or it might feel insulted that you thus, very improperly, mixed in your own affairs. No, dear sir, it will take a little longer before you are entitled to speak seriously on this matter so as really to satisfy the congregation. Wait till you have buried your first wife and are well along with your second wife: then it will be time for you to stand before your congregation to preach and "bear witness" that Christianity prefers the single state--then you will satisfy them altogether; for your life will furnish the guarantee that it is all tomfoolery and great fun, or that what you say is--interesting. Indeed, how interesting! For just as, to make it interesting, the husband must be unfaithful to his wife and the wife to her husband, likewise truth becomes interesting, intensely interesting, only when one lets one's self be carried away by one's feelings, be fascinated by them--but of course does the precise opposite and thus in an underhand manner is re-assured in persisting in one's ways.