Would it be conceivable for an—I won't say an intelligent, but at least a reasonably well-read man like myself, who finds it quite impossible to believe one word of your doctrines—"
"Huh!"
"—but who is tremendously impressed by your ritual and the spirit of worship—could such a man be received into the Roman Catholic Church, honestly, with the understanding that to him your dogmas are nothing but symbols?"
"Most certainly not!"
"Don't you know any priests who love the Church but don't literally believe all the doctrines?"
"I do not! I know no such persons! Shallard, you can't understand the authority and reasonableness of the Church. You're not ready to. You think too much of your puerile powers of reasoning. You haven't enough divine humility to comprehend the ages of wisdom that have gone to building up this fortress, and you stand outside its walls, one pitifully lonely little figure, blowing the trumpet of your egotism, and demanding of the sentry, 'Take me to your commander. I am graciously inclined to assist him. Only he must understand that I think his granite walls are pasteboard, and I reserve the right to blow them down when I get tired of them.' Man, if you were a prostitute or a murderer and came to me saying 'Can I be saved?' I'd cry 'Yes!' and give my life to helping you. But you're obsessed by a worse crime than murder—pride of intellect! And yet you haven't such an awfully overpowering intellect to be proud of, and I'm not sure but that's the worst crime of all! Good-day!"
He added, as Frank ragingly opened the door, "Go home and pray for simplicity."
"Go home and pray that I may be made like you? Pray to have your humility and your manners?" said Frank.
It was a fortnight later that for his own satisfaction Frank set down in the note-book which he had always carried for sermon ideas, which he still carried for the sermons they would never let him preach again, a conclusion:
"The Roman Catholic Church is superior to the militant Protestant Church. It does not compel you to give up your sense of beauty, your sense of humor, or your pleasant vices. It merely requires you to give up your honesty, your reason, your heart and soul."
