two hostile
lines, of irreconcilable direction. That silent thing up there is
essentially a collision, a crash, a struggle in stone. Pah! that
sacred symbol of yours has actually given its name to a description of
desperation and muddle. When we speak of men at once ignorant of each
other and frustrated by each other, we say they are at cross-purposes.
Away with the thing! The very shape of it is a contradiction in terms."

"What you say is perfectly true," said Michael, with serenity. "But we
like contradictions in terms. Man is a contradiction in terms; he is a
beast whose superiority to other beasts consists in having fallen. That
cross is, as you say, an eternal collision; so am I. That is a struggle
in stone. Every form of life is a struggle in flesh. The shape of
the cross is irrational, just as the shape of the human animal is
irrational. You say the cross is a quadruped with one limb longer than
the rest. I say man is a quadruped who only uses two of his legs."

The Professor frowned thoughtfully for an instant, and said: "Of
course everything is relative, and I would not deny that the element
of struggle and self-contradiction, represented by that cross, has a
necessary place at a certain evolutionary stage. But surely the cross
is the lower development and the sphere the higher. After all it is
easy enough to see what is really wrong with Wren's architectural
arrangement."

"And what is that, pray?" inquired Michael, meekly.

"The cross is on top of the ball," said Professor Lucifer, simply. "That
is surely wrong. The ball should be on top of the cross. The cross is a
mere barbaric prop; the ball is perfection. The cross at its best is but
the bitter tree of man's history; the ball is the rounded, the ripe and
final fruit. And the fruit should be at the top of the tree, not at the
bottom of it."

"Oh!" said the monk, a wrinkle coming into his forehead, "so you think
that in a rationalistic scheme of symbolism the ball should be on top of
the cross?"

"It sums up my whole allegory," said the professor.

"Well, that is really very interesting," resumed Michael slowly,
"because I think in that case you would see a most singular effect, an
effect that has generally been achieved by all those able and powerful
systems which rationalism, or the religion of the ball, has produced to
lead or teach mankind. You would see, I think, that thing happen which
is always the ultimate embodiment and logical outcome of