Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/256

266 than we; but then they must really be so,—they must be men of the spirit and of the truth. If the word of Christ and the Apostles be opposed to theirs, then they cannot be so.” “But who shall be the judge of that? How can we venture to do it?” asked the monk.

“If I could not do it,” I replied, “after having, with prayer and meditation, sought for light from the Lord of light, then, as a general rule, neither could I judge between truth and error. I might just as well, in that case, be a Mohammedan or a Fetich-worshiper, as a Christian.”

“Look at the number and varieties of sects in your church,” observed Père Marie Louis. “Where is their unity?”

“In Jesus Christ and his kingdom,” I answered. “This is their centre, their point of union; and their fault is merely that they do not comprehend it so fully and so strongly as that it should outweigh the differences of secondary importance, which, I believe, must always arise amongst men of dissimilar gifts, and in dissimilar circumstances, but which, properly understood, contribute to the development of Christian science.”

Our conversation generally turns upon these points, and each one of us abides by our own views, and we mutually repeat the same arguments; whilst the logical ingenuity and the refined wit of Père Louis Marie always amuses me as much as the various flights of the discussion. Occasionally they cause us both to burst into very refreshing fits of laughter. Père Marie Louis is as amiable as he is pious, and I might