r of serving it and the proper method of consuming it had
furnished a bad moment or two; and once Monsignor had been
obliged to feign sudden deafness on being asked a question on a
subject of which he knew nothing by a priest whose name he had
forgotten, until Father Jervis slid in adroitly and saved him.
Yet these were quite unnoticed, it appeared, and could easily be
attributed to the habit of absent-mindedness for which, Monsignor
Masterman was relieved to learn, he was almost notorious.

And now the crisis was past and Mr. Manners was launched.
Monsignor glanced almost happily round the tall dining-room, from
which the servants had already disappeared, and, with his glass
in his hand, settled himself down to listen and remember.

* * * * *

"The crisis, to my mind, in the religious situation," began the
statesman, looking more professional than ever, with his closed
eyes, thin, wrinkled face, and high forehead--"the real crisis is
to be sought in the period from 1900 to 1920.

"This was the period, you remember, of tremendous social
agitation. There was the widespread revolution of the Latin
countries, beginning with France and Portugal, chiefly against
Authority, and most of all against Monarchy (since Monarchy is
the most vivid and the most concrete embodiment of authority);
and in Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon countries against Capital and
Aristocracy. It was in these years that Socialism came most near
to dominating the civilized world; and, indeed, you will remember
that for long after that date it did dominate civilization in
certain places.

"Now the real trouble at the bottom of all this was the state in
which Religion found itself. And you will find, gentlemen," said
the quasi-lecturer in parenthesis, glancing round the attentive
faces, "that Religion always is and always has been at the root
of every world-movement. In fact it must be so. The deepest
instinct in man is his religion, that is, his attitude to eternal
issues; and on that attitude must depend his relation to temporal
things. This is so, largely, even in the case of the individual;
it must therefore be infinitely more so in large bodies or
nations; since every crowd is moved by principles that are the
least common multiple of the principles of the units which
compose it. Of course this is universally recognized now; but it
was not always so. There was a time, particularly at this period
of which I am now speaking, when men attempte