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There is no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet

remark that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more

at variance with the lives of ordinary Christians than the

discourse of Utopia ('And yet the most part of them is more

dissident from the manners of the world now a days, than my

communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following

your counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to

frame their manners to Christ's rule, they have wrested and wried

his doctrine, and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men's

manners, that by some means at the least way, they might agree

together.')