an when we say that
Christianity has a special power of virtue, I will tell you. The Church
is the only thing on earth that can perpetuate a type of virtue and make
it something more than a fashion. The thing is so plain and historical
that I hardly think you will ever deny it. You cannot deny that it is
perfectly possible that tomorrow morning, in Ireland or in Italy, there
might appear a man not only as good but good in exactly the same way
as St. Francis of Assisi. Very well, now take the other types of human
virtue; many of them splendid. The English gentleman of Elizabeth was
chivalrous and idealistic. But can you stand still here in this meadow
and _be_ an English gentleman of Elizabeth? The austere republican of
the eighteenth century, with his stern patriotism and his simple life,
was a fine fellow. But have you ever seen him? have you ever seen an
austere republican? Only a hundred years have passed and that volcano of
revolutionary truth and valour is as cold as the mountains of the moon.
And so it is and so it will be with the ethics which are buzzing down
Fleet Street at this instant as I speak. What phrase would inspire
the London clerk or workman just now? Perhaps that he is a son of the
British Empire on which the sun never sets; perhaps that he is a prop of
his Trades Union, or a class-conscious proletarian something or other;
perhaps merely that he is a gentleman when he obviously is not. Those
names and notions are all honourable; but how long will they last?
Empires break; industrial conditions change; the suburbs will not last
for ever. What will remain? I will tell you. The Catholic Saint will
remain."

"And suppose I don't like him?" said Turnbull.

"On my theory the question is rather whether he will like you: or
more probably whether he will ever have heard of you. But I grant the
reasonableness of your query. You have a right, if you speak as the
ordinary man, to ask if you will like the saint. But as the ordinary man
you do like him. You revel in him. If you dislike him it is not because
you are a nice ordinary man, but because you are (if you will excuse me)
a sophisticated prig of a Fleet Street editor. That is just the funny
part of it. The human race has always admired the Catholic virtues,
however little it can practise them; and oddly enough it has admired
most those of them that the modern world most sharply disputes. You
complain of Catholicism for setting up an ideal of virginity; it