ls who
surround him, dog him with eavesdroppers, edit his briefs, check his
benign impulses, and effectually prevent the truth from penetrating to
his lonely study. Benedetto's appeal to the Pope to heal the four wounds
from which the Church is languishing is a model of impassioned argument.
The four wounds, be it noted, are the "spirit of falsehood," "the spirit
of clerical domination," "the spirit of avarice," and "the spirit of
immobility." The Pope replies in a tone of resignation; he does not
disguise his powerlessness; he hopes to meet Benedetto again--in heaven!

IV

_The Saint_ may be considered under many aspects--indeed, the critics,
in their efforts to classify it, have already fallen out over its real
character. Some regard it as a thinly disguised statement of a creed;
others, as a novel pure and simple; others, as a campaign document (in
the broadest sense); others, as no novel at all, but a dramatic sort of
confession. The Jesuits have had it put on the _Index_; the Christian
Democrats have accepted it as their gospel: yet Jesuits and Christian
Democrats both profess to be Catholics. Such a divergence of opinion
proves conclusively that the book possesses unusual power and that it
is many-sided. Instead of pitching upon one of these views as right
and declaring all the rest to be wrong, it is more profitable to try to
discover in the book itself what grounds each class of critics finds to
justify its particular and exclusive verdict.

On the face of it what does the book say? This is what it says: That
Piero Maironi, a man of the world, cultivated far beyond his kind, after
having had a vehement love-affair is stricken with remorse, "experiences
religion," becomes penitent, is filled with a strange zeal--an ineffable
comfort--and devotes himself, body, heart, and soul to the worship of
God and the succour of his fellow-men. As Benedetto, the lay brother, he
serves the peasant populations among the Sabine hills, or moves on his
errands of hope and mercy among the poor of Rome. Everybody recognises
him as a holy man--"a saint." Perhaps, if he had restricted himself to
taking only soup or simple medicines to the hungry and sick, he would
have been unmolested in his philanthropy; but after his conversion, he
had devoured the Scriptures and studied the books of the Fathers, until
the spirit of the early, simple, untheological Church had poured into
him. It brought a message the truth of which so stirre