“The young man may adopt his ideal through reason, but I am not a young man, and I am going to speak to you about myself. As I listened to our talk this evening the same thought entered my mind. The life which I am leading, it is plain to me, cannot give me a serene conscience and happiness. Both experience and reason prove this. Then what am I waiting for! You struggle from morning till night for your family, and the result is that both you and your family continue to live ungodly lives, and you are all the while worse and worse entangled in your sins. You work for your family, and it seems your family are not better off or happier because you work for them. And so I often think it would be better if I changed my whole life and did exactly what this young man proposed⁠—ceased to bother about wife and children, and only thought about my soul. Not without reason does it say in St. Paul: ‘He that is married takes thought about his wife, but he that is unmarried about God.’ ”

Before this married man had finished his remarks, all the women present, including his wife, fell upon him: