If Le Morte d'Arthur ended with the Grail section, its message would be one of ascetic Christianity: renounce the world. But it does not. Galahad's way may be the best, but it is not of this world. Launcelot is the best possible worldly man. Malory, in other words, rejects all-or-nothing Christianity, or at any rate allows degrees of virtue. So important is this point, in fact, that he repeatedly drops his usual narrative manner to introduce in this section direct address to the reader. This, for instance:
Therefore, lyke as May moneth flowryth and floryshyth in every mannes gardyne, so in lyke wyse lat every man of worshyp florysh hys herte in thys worlde: firste unto God, and nexte unto the joy of them that he promysed hys feythe unto, for there was never worshypfull man nor worshypfull woman but they loved one bettir than another; and worshyp in armys may never by foyled. But firste reserve the honoure to God, and secundely thy quarell muste corn of thy lady. And such love I calle vertuouse love.
(from the opening of "The Knight of the Cart")
Launcelot's first loyalty is to Guinevere. That is his sin, and he admits it. But his sin is mitigated by the fact, first, that he has learned humility — whatever good he can do (for instance, the healing of Urry) he does by God's might, not his own — and by the fact that, second, it is not unnatural in a "worshypfull" man to love one woman "bettir than another."
