Page:The Saint (1906, 5th ed.).djvu/13

Rh classes of society—from the poorest peasant of the Subiaco hills, to duchesses and the Pope himself—some incredulous, some mocking, some devout, some hesitating, some spell-bound in the presence of a holy man. The fashionable ladies wish to take him up and make a lion of him; the superstitious kiss the hem of his garment and believe that he can work miracles, or, in a sudden revulsion, they jeer and drive him away with stones. And what a panorama of ecclesiastical life in Italy! What a collection of priests and monks and prelates, and with what inevitableness one after another turns the cold shoulder on the layman who dares to assert that the test of religion is conduct. There is an air of mystery, of intrigue, of secret messages passing to and fro—the atmosphere of craft which has hung round the ecclesiastical institution so many, many centuries. Few scenes in modern romance can match Benedetto's interview with the Pope—the pathetic figure who, you feel, is in sad truth a prisoner, not of the Italian government, but of the crafty, able, remorseless cabal of cardinals who surround him, dog him with eavesdroppers, edit his briefs, check his benign impulses, and effectually prevent the truth from penetrating to his lonely study. Benedetto's appeal to the Pope to heal the four wounds from which the Church is languishing is a model of impassioned argument. The four wounds, be it noted, are "the spirit of falsehood," "the spirit of clerical domination," "the spirit of avarice," and "the spirit of immobility." The Pope replies in a tone of resignation; he does not disguise his powerlessness; he hopes to meet Benedetto again in heaven.