Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/174

 Assuredly not; therefore that religious body will be the most favoured, will become the richest in all things that make this life worth living or the life to come worth preparing for, which shall succeed in attaining to the greatest popularity, not to the greatest orthodoxy. Dogma is an intellectual quicksand, but hedonism appeals to our common instincts, and only upon that basis can any temple of worship endure, now that the old sacerdotalism has passed away. You possess that basis in the cult of Our Lady, it only needs developing: the devotion toward Her which already exists among Catholics is ample evidence of the fact. Is not, then, that fact a plain call to the rulers of our Church,—a voice in the wilderness crying to them, ‘Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Eternal is risen upon thee.’’

‘You are an enthusiast, Mr Bristley,’ said the cardinal, in a tremulous voice. For as he was about to reply, he looked up and his eyes met those of Lesbia.

Never before, not among the thousands of girls and women he was accustomed to meet in the exercise of his ministrations and in society, had he been transfixed by such a look as that. It penetrated to his inmost heart, as an illustration of the words, ‘The glory of the Eternal is risen upon thee;’ it was, in truth, looking out at and overwhelming him. But neither of the two spoke to the other, and the parson, who was too intent on his subject to notice the incident, was left to continue his attack.

‘Enthusiast! Yes I am, Cardinal Power, an enthusiast in this cause, and with good reason. I see the goal to which all human religion has been striving through these long ages of agony. I see that goal within reach, within your reach; why do you not press forward to it? Have you no lofty ambition, no aspirations, no sense of corporate dignity, none of that initiative and enterprise without which the great