On The True Church

Hobnobbed with the homeless. Wound my way up State Street and Bucked with Leskov.

*

From Leskov's "The Sealed Angel":

     "The elder Pamva," I reply sternly, "is a servant of the ruling Church. Why should we go looking at him?"

    "Where's the harm in it?" he says. "I'd like to see him, in order to comprehend the grace of the ruling Church."

     I chided him, saying, "What sort of grace could there be?" -- yet I felt the was more right than I was, because he wished to test things out, while I rejected what I didn't know, but I insisted on my rejection and talked complete nonsense to him..

     "Church people," I say, "look at the sky not with faith, but through the gates of Aristotle, and determine their way in the sea by the star of the pagan god Remphan, and you want to have the same view as theirs?"

    But Levonty replies: "You're inventing fables, uncle: there was no such god as Remphan, and everything was created by one wisdom."

    That mad me feel even more stupid and I said:

    "Church people drink coffee!"

    "Where's the harm in that?" Levonty replies. "The coffee bean was brought to King David as a gift."

   "How do you know all that?" I ask.

   "I've read it in books," he says.

    "Well, know then that not everything is written in books."