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 to you here to-day such a sect, under the name of Mylittists, which I fear uses religion only as a cloak for licentiousness, has sprung up in London out of the débris of the shattered Establishment, and is pushing its way with such rapid success that—’

‘Pardon, your Eminence,’ interrupted one of the Italian prelates, ‘but surely you do not ask Rome to vie in the race for popularity with this or that sect of infidels?’

‘With this or that one, no, Cardinal Borsa,’ he answered, ‘but to compete with the whole world of sects is just what Rome must do, or how shall she survive, how lift up her head out of the present disasters and still worse ones that may be yet to come? You do wrong to sneer at popularity; it is our breath of life, our last and only resource. Now look here, brethren,’ he continued, in a louder and sterner voice, ‘should my views prove unacceptable to the reverend assembly I have the honour of addressing at this moment, there is another influential quarter where they may possibly be more favourably received—I will lay them before Madame Pisa-Vitri.’

His hearers all turned their faces, and most of them shifted uneasily in their seats, but nothing was said.

‘It would not be the first time,’ pursued the cardinal, in the same stern voice, ‘that a staunch friend has been turned into a dangerous enemy. The case of Madame Pisa-Vitri herself is an instance. She was your devoted adherent; now you have the pleasure of feeling her claws. You may have to feel mine too, if her ladyship and I should become allied, united in the determination to reform holy Church more drastically than ever Luther or anyone else did. It would be the last schism you will ever suffer, for the sufficient reason that it would be fatal. I can count upon a large following in England, and especially in Ireland; for thousands who are not now Catholics will be ready to adopt