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46 usual text-books used by Catholics in this country, were not only inadequate to express the great truths of religion, but were almost unintelligible to those who had been educated in the language of a new civilisation. That that civilisation might be decadent and morbid was not the point, the point being that it was in possession of the minds of men. Greek may be a finer language than English, but it is not usually of so much use in dealing with the inhabitants of the British Isles.

His practical English mind demanded that something should be done to bridge the chasm between the very rich in spiritual gifts and the very desolate. If he had found and realised the prevalence of some horrible disease he would have said: "What's to be done now?" and in the same way he demanded of busy, tired, parish priests and comfortable, quiet old laymen, "What's to be done now to make faith intelligible and reasonable to the minds of such people as the Telles?"

Some years before they met the Comte d'Etranges noticed two articles by George Sutcliffe, which struck him by their rare gift of intellectual common-sense and the author's sympathetic treatment of his opponents. He had been on the look-out for the writer from that time onward, and spared no pains to annex him when they were thrown together.