'I have laid down two rules for the country: first, not to smite the partridge; for if I feed the poor, and comforted the sick, and instructed the ignorant, yet I should be nothing worth if I smote the partridge. If anything ever endangers the church, it will be the strong propensity to shooting which the clergy are remarkable. Ten thousand good shots dispersed over the country do more harm to the cause of religion than the arguments of Voltaire and Rousseau. The squire never reads, but it is not possible he can believe that religion to be genuine whose ministers destroy his game.
H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), 161
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