‘Yes, I understand it is because of certain references to your Church, which have occurred in my lectures. Well, the reasons for making those references were very strong, but being also very grave, I hardly know how to state them in a way suitable to an occasion like this.’
‘We will make a suitable occasion, with your kind permission,’ said the cardinal, smiling, ‘and an early one, for I confess you make me very curious. A special mission of the Catholic Church about which she remains wholly in the dark! I cannot conceive of it. Is it new? has it never been propounded before?’
‘It is older than the beginning of the world. It is propounded by every fact in nature. But whether it has been formulated to you in words by others, I do not know, and care not to inquire. If it has not, it is because the time was not ripe,—you were unprepared to receive the higher dispensation. The important question is whether you will receive or reject it now.’
‘Do you claim to be its depositary then?’
‘Far be such a claim from an individual, and that individual a man!’ replied the other gravely. ‘I may claim to be one of its humbler apostles, at the most, one of the mere teachers of the divine wisdom. Consider, Cardinal Power, what is the relation, for example, of a good teacher of singing to his pupil. If nature has given the pupil a good voice, the teacher can show how the true tone of that voice should be produced and made the most of. But if the vocal organs be naturally bad, no teacher in the world can make them good. Analogously, if the heart of your Church be in a fit state for the higher dispensation, I can tell you what that dispensation is. But I cannot give you the grace to accept it.’
‘More and more mysterious,’ said the cardinal, half to himself, as, pressing his knuckles on his lips, he gazed for a
