Lord of the World

ctor of England occupied him directly for at least two

e in touch with the Pope on the one side and the people he represented on the other. In other words, centralisation had gone forward rapidly, in accordance with the laws of life; and, with centralisation, freedom of method and expansion of power. England's Cardinal-Pr

to receive callers, and till noon he was generally busy with both those who came to see him on their own responsibility and his staff of half-a-dozen reporters whose business it was to bring him marked paragraphs in the newspapers and their own comments. He then breakfasted with the other priests in the house, and set out soon after to call on people whose opinion was necessary, returning for a cup of tea soon after s

riously distracting lif

on, that he was just finishing his letter, when his ser

" said Percy, wi

heet, and settled down to read it over, trans

NSTER,

impressed by the applause he received.... Yet among others an expectation is growing that a man will presently be found to lead the Communist movement and unite their forces more closely. I enclose a verbose cutting from the New People to that effect; and it is echoed everywhere. They say that the cause must give birth to one such soon; that they have had prophets and precursors for a hundred years past, and lately a cessation of them. It is strange how this coincides superficially with Christian ideas. Your Eminence will observe that a simile of the 'ninth wave' is used with some eloquence.... I hear to-day of the secession of an old Catholic family, the Wargraves of Norfolk, with their chaplain Micklem, who i

aves and these eight priests should be issued in Norfolk

that contained his extracts and running commentary, signed the la

his biretta and

*

not passed already. Father Francis looked miserably ill, but there was a curious hard

good-bye, father. I

d himself sat down too. "It is an end of everything," said the other again in a p

nothing, you me

r. "I tell you there is nothing left. I c

were all and emotion nothing, was as a child crawling about in the midst of some huge machinery: it might survive or it might not; but it required nerves of steel to keep steady. It was hard to know where blame could be assigned; yet Percy's faith told him that there was blame due. In the ages of faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for long, unless indeed they we

s sympathy to show its

ult, of course," sa

e that! It may be untrue-I am not speaking of that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely true-but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and vi

"then suppose I withdraw that, and simpl

d: you have told me so a dozen times. Well, I repeat, that is pride, and quite sufficient to

cis looked

story!" he sa

n the case, or no particular programme of sin you propose to wo

there is not,"

cy. "There are fewer obsta

d been met by the retort that this was to advise sheer self-hypnotism; and he had despaired of making clear to one who did not see it for himself that while Love and Faith may be called self-hypnotism from one angle, yet from another they are as much realities as, for example, art

rld parlour, its tall window, its strip of matting, conscious chiefly of the dreary hopelessness of this human brother of

in a lax kind of huddle, seemed to kn

of me," he sa

said Percy simply. "I am only terribly so

looked at

beautiful; I wish I could believe it. I don't thin

it in the search for God is to seek ruin, but this priest had scarcely seen the application to himself. He

ill cast me off,

me," said Percy. "I canno

annot we b

ouched the elde

ality all you mean by friendship?

ace became su

ought

an we pretend anything when you do not believe in God

s spra

"I could not have b

d towards

"Are you going like this

again, with heavy

ou could not be

! that is all you mean by friendship, is it?-I beg your p

cis looked at it a moment, his lips shook: then