I say that the main Christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism,
even in the ascetics.

Let me set about making the matter clear. There is one broad fact
about the relations of Christianity and Paganism which is so simple
that many will smile at it, but which is so important that all
moderns forget it. The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism
is that one came after the other. Mr. Lowes Dickinson speaks
of them as if they were parallel ideals--even speaks as if Paganism
were the newer of the two, and the more fitted for a new age.
He suggests that the Pagan ideal will be the ultimate good of man;
but if that is so, we must at least ask with more curiosity
than he allows for, why it was that man actually found his
ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw it away again.
It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose to attempt an answer.

There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face
to face with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern
world which in that sense knows anything about Paganism:
and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in
the whole of that hedonistic neo-Paganism of which I have spoken.
All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances
of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus
or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church.
If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back
to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon
of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas.
Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin,
even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution
is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin.