H. L. Mencken was surrounded by Obedience Boys and Girls while he was growing up. His name for them was Puritan. Their example to him was not one of emulation but a self-righteousness that bred revulsion:
The service that [Anthony Comstock] performed, in his grandiose way, was no more than a magnification of humble Y.M.C.A. secretaries, evangelical clergymen, and other such lowly fauna. It is their function in the world to ruin their ideas by believing in them and living them. Striving sincerely to be patterns to the young, they suffer the ironical fate of becoming horrible examples. I remember very well, how, as a boy of ten, I was articled to the Y.M.C.A.: the aim was to improve my taste for respectability and so curb my apparently natural flair for the art and mystery of the highwayman. But a few months of contact with the official representatives of that great organization filled me with a vast loathing, not only for the men themselves, but also for all the ideas they stood for. Thus, at the age of eleven, I abandoned Christian Endeavor forevermore, and have been an antinomian ever since, contumacious to holy men and resigned to Hell. Old Anthony, I believe, accomplished much the same thing that the Y.M.C.A. achieved with me, but on an immeasurably larger scale. He did more than any other man to ruin Puritanism in the United States. When he began his long and brilliant career of unwitting sabotage, the essential principles of comstockery were believed in by practically every reputable American. Half a century later, when he went upon the shelf, comstockery enjoyed a degree of public esteem, at least in the big cities, half way between that enjoyed by phrenology and that enjoyed by homosexuality. It was, at best, laughable. It was, at worst, revolting. (“Souvenirs of a Book Reviewer,” Prejudices: Sixth Series)
Of course, the take away is not to throw in the towel and join Mencken’s antinomian team. It is rather to consider what happens when you tout sanctity in such a public and implicitly self-sanctimonious way. Perhaps the path of sanctification lies less in calling attention to yourself as an advocate of it and than in living a quiet and peaceful life.
Old Life 