Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/101

Rh the violent temper of this ascetic mystic, had intended to give him time to control himself by requesting Don Clemente to speak first. He now sprang up excitedly. His words did not flow smoothly, their very impetus causing them to tremble and break, and, broken, they poured from his lips in a torrent, precise, nevertheless, and powerful, with their vigorous Roman accent.

"That is true! We have no human fears. We are striving for things too great, and we desire them too intensely to feel human fears! We wish to be united in the living Christ, all among us who feel that the understanding of the Way, the Truth, and the Life—is—is—is—growing, yes, is growing in our hearts, in our minds! And this understanding bursts so many—what shall I call them?—so many bonds of ancient formulas which press us, which suffocate us; which would suffocate the Church were the Church mortal! We wish to be united in the living Christ, all among us who thirst—who thirst, Abbé Marinier! who thirst! thirst!—that our faith, if it lose in extent, may gain in intensity—gain a hundredfold—for God's glory! And may it irradiate from us, and may it, I say, be as a purifying fire, purifying first Catholic thought and then Catholic action! We wish to be united in the living Christ, all among us who feel that He is preparing a slow but tremendous reformation, through the prophets and the saints; a transformation to be accomplished by sacrifice, by sorrow, by the