, "for I would fain do all I can, that I may have him
live, and take pleasure in my doing well in the world." Similarly, when
his uncle is dying, we have a note "that he is very ill, and so God's
Will be done." When the uncle is dead, Pepys' remark is, "sorry in one
respect, glad in my expectations in another respect." When his
predecessor dies, he writes, "Mr. Barlow is dead; for which God knows my
heart, I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger,
by whose death he gets L100 per annum."

Another exit towards idealism of the Christian and spiritual sort might
be supposed to be found in his abundant and indeed perpetual references
to churches and sermons. He is an indomitable sermon taster and critic.
But his criticisms, although they are among the most amusing of all his
notes, soon lead us to surrender any expectation of escape from paganism
along this line. "We got places, and staid to hear a sermon; but it,
being a Presbyterian one, it was so long, that after above an hour of it
we went away, and I home, and dined; and then my wife and I by water to
the Opera." This is not, perhaps, surprising, and may in some measure
explain his satisfaction with Dr. Creeton's "most admirable, good,
learned, and most severe sermon, yet comicall," in which the preacher
"railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin, and his brood, the
Presbyterians," and ripped up Hugh Peters' preaching, calling him "the
execrable skellum." One man preaches "well and neatly"; another "in a
devout manner, not elegant nor very persuasive, but seems to mean well,
and that he would preach holily"; while Mr. Mills makes "an unnecessary
sermon upon Original Sin, neither understood by himself nor the people."
On the whole, his opinion of the Church is not particularly high, and he
seems to share the view of the Confessor of the Marquis de Caranen,
"that the three great trades of the world are, the lawyers, who govern
the world; the Churchmen who enjoy the world; and a sort of fellows whom
they call soldiers, who make it their work to defend the world."

It must be confessed that, when there were pretty ladies present and
when his wife was absent, the sermons had but little chance. "To
Westminster to the parish church, and there did entertain myself with my
perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great
pleasure of seeing and gazing at a great many very fine women; and what
with that, and sleeping, I passed away