From “Lifemanship: Or the Art of Getting Away With It Without Being An Absolute Plonk,” by Stephen Potter, 1950
Elsa: Are you coming to church with us?
Moulton: Yes, why don't you come to church for once, you old sinner?
It is a little country church, and my host, Moulton, who has some claims to be a local squire, wants me to come, I know because he is going to read the lesson. He reads it very well. He enjoys reading it. I heard him practicing it to himself immediately after breakfast.
Narrator: Elsa, when the painted glass is scattered from the windows, and the roof is opened to the sky, and the ordinary simple flowers grow in the crevices of pew and transept-then and not till then will your church, as I believe, be fit for our worship.
Not only does this reply completely silence the opponent; but it will be possible to go out and win ten shillings on the golf course, come back very slightly buzzed from Sunday pre-lunch drinks, and suggest, by your direct and untroubled look, before which their glance may actually shift, that by comparison with yourself [Elsa] and [David], however innocently, have been only playing at religion. That is Religious Basic.
