dream of a Divine
Society, the Anarchist with his passionate nightmare of complete
individual liberty, both ran up together, in the heart of the
black darkness, against the vast outline of a Divine Family that
was a fact and not a far-off ambition--a Family that fell in Eden
and became a competitive State; a Holy Family that redeemed
Nazareth and all the world; a Catholic Family in whom was neither
Jew nor Greek, nor masters against men--in whom the doctrine of
Vocation secured the rights and the dignities of the Society on
one side and the Individual on the other. Finally Art, wandering
hither and thither in the mazes of Realism, saw light ahead, and
found in Catholic Art and Symbolism the secret of her life.

"This, then, was the result--that the Church was found to be
eternally right in every plane. In plane after plane she had
been condemned. Pilate--the Law of Separate Nations--had found
her guilty of sedition; Herod--the miracle-monger at one instant
and the sceptic at the next--the Scientist, in fact--had
declared her guilty of fraud; Caiaphas had condemned her in the
name of National Religion. Or, again, she had been thought the
enemy of Art by the Greek-spirited; the enemy of Law by the
Latins; the enemy of Religion by the Hebraic Pharisee. She had
borne her title written in Greek and Latin and Hebrew. She had
been crucified, and taunted as she hung there; she had seemed to
die; and, to and behold! when the Third Day dawned she was alive
again for evermore. From every single point she had been
justified and vindicated. Men had thought to invent a new
religion, a new art, a new social order, a new philosophy; they
had burrowed and explored and digged in every direction; and, at
the end, when they had worked out their theories and found, as
they thought, the reward of their labours, they found themselves
looking once more into the serene, smiling face of Catholicism.
She was risen from the dead once more, and was seen to be the
Daughter of God, with Power."

There was a moment's silence.

"There, gentlemen," said Mr. Manners, dropping back again into the
quiet professor, "that, I think, in a few words, is the outline for
which Monsignor asked. I hope I have not detained you too long."

(II)

"It is the most extraordinary story I have ever heard," said
Monsignor Masterman ten minutes later, as he threw himself down
in his chair upstairs, with Father Jervis sitting opposite.

"Certainly he puts it ver