" murmured Durtal, laying down the book. "O Lord! If we allowed
ourselves nowadays to use such materialistic comparisons and make use of
such homely terms in speaking of Thy supremely adorable Body, what a
clamour would arise from the 'respectable' among the worshippers and the
blessed legion of the good women who have comfortable praying-chairs and
reserved places near the altar--like front seats in a theatre--in the
House where all are equal."

And Durtal pondered over these reflections which assailed him every time
he happened to take up a clerical journal or one of the Manuals
introduced by some prelate's note of approval, like a clean bill of
health.

He could never get over his amazement at the incredible ignorance, the
instinctive aversion for art, the type of ideas, the terror of words,
peculiar to Catholics. Why was this? For after all there was no reason
why believers should be more ignorant and stupid than any other folks.
Indeed, the contrary ought to be the truth.

Whence did this inferiority proceed? And Durtal could answer himself. It
was due to the system of education, to the training in intellectual
timidity, to the lessons in fear, given in a cellar, far from a vital
atmosphere and the light of day. It really seemed as if there were some
intention of emasculating souls by nourishing them on dried-up
fragments, literary white-meat; some set purpose of destroying all
independence and initiative in the disciples by levelling them, crushing
them all under the same roller, and restricting the sphere of thought by
maintaining a deliberate ignorance of art and literature.

And all merely to avert the temptation of forbidden fruit, of which the
idea was suggested under the pretext of inspiring dread of it. By this
method curiosity with regard to the veiled unknown tormented their young
brains and excited their senses, for it was always in the background,
and in a form all the more dangerous because it had the effect of a more
or less transparent gauze. The imagination could not fail to exasperate
itself by cogitating its desire to know and its fear of knowing, and it
was ready to fly off at the least word.

Under these circumstances the most anodyne book was a source of danger
from the simple fact that love was alluded to, and woman depicted as an
attractive creature; and this was enough to account for all--for the
inherent ignorance of Catholics, since it was proclaimed as the
preventive cure for temptat