When, from the top of any high hill, one looks round the country, and sees the multitude of regularly distributed spires, one not only ceases to wonder that order and religion are maintained, but one is astonished that any such thing as disaffection or irreligion should prevail.

Letter to William Windham (27 May 1802), quoted in J. C. D. Clark, English Society. 1688-1832. Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 89-90.