But we should try to be both intelligent and good. We should take every step in our power to improve our minds. (Prideaux began to look more satisfied; this was what sermons to-day ought to be about.) It is our duty to our country to be intelligent citizens, if we can, said the vicar. Reason is what God has differentiated us from the lower animals by. They have instinct, we reason. Truly a noble heritage. We are rather clever already; we have discovered fire, electricity, coal, and invented printing, steam engines, and flying. No reason why we should not improve our minds further still, and invent (under God) more things yet. Only one thing we must affirm; the State should be very careful how it interferes with the domestic lives of its citizens. The State was going rather far in that direction; it savoured unpleasantly of Socialism, a tyranny to which Englishmen did not take kindly. An Englishman's home had always been his castle (even castles, thought some aggrieved members of the congregation, were subject to unpleasant supervision by the police during food scarcity). No race was before us in its respect for law, but also no race was more determined that their personal and domestic relations should not be tampered with. When the State endeavoured to set up a Directorate of Matrimony, and penalised those who did not conform to its regulations, the State was, said the vicar, going too far, even for a State. The old school of _laissez-faire_, long since discredited as an economic theory, survived as regards the private lives of citizens. It is not the State which has ordained marriage, it is God, and God did not say "Only marry the clever; have no children but clever ones." He said, speaking through the inspired mouth of the writer of the book of Genesis, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." ("And, through the inspired mouth of Solomon, 'Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children,'" murmured Anthony Grammont, who knew his Bible in patches, but was apt to get the authorship wrong.) The vicar said he was now going to say a bold thing; if it brought him within reach of the law he could not help it. He considered that we ought all, in this matter, to be what are called Conscientious Obstructionists; we ought to protest against this interference, and refuse to pay the taxes levied upon those less intelligent infants sent to us by heaven. He did not say this without much thought and prayer, and it was, of course, a matter for everyone's own conscience, but he felt constrained to bear his witness on this question.