"That is the gist of it," said Mr. Byars, "though I have missed out a few paragraphs. The result has been that, with a few exceptions, the whole army of Romanists, so to speak, have closed ranks and utterly refused to listen to what is going on."
"It's very fine, very fine indeed, as a spectacle," Gortre answered. "I wish we had something like that unity and discipline. But is that submission, possibly without the fire of an inward conviction, worth very much? I doubt it."
"It is not for us to judge," answered the vicar. "But the result has been that the Catholic Church, both here and on the Continent, is undergoing a storm of persecution and popular hatred. There have been fearful fights in Liverpool, and riots between the Irish dock-labourers and a mob of people who called themselves Protestants last year and 'Rationalists' to-day.
"The attitude of the Low Church party is varied. Many of them are openly deserting to Unitarianism. Others have accepted the discovery as being a true one, and evolved an entirely new theory from it, while using it as a party weapon also. This attitude is reflected in The Tower in an article which says that, though the actual body of Christ is now proved never to have risen from the dead, the spiritual body was what the Disciples saw. It is a clever piece of work, which has attracted an immense number of people, and is directed entirely against the Holy Eucharist.[1] The Moderate and High Church parties are in some ways in a worse position than any other. They find themselves unable to compromise.
"At the great meeting in the Albert Hall the other day, which ended up in something like a free fight, all the conclusion the majority of the clergy could come to was that it was utterly impossible to accept the discovery
- ↑ This article has already been seen in the preceding chapter.
