Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/97

Rh be achieved through this league. Associations may be useful in helping to raise salaries, they may promote industries and commerce; but science and truth, never. Reforms will surely be brought about some day, because ideas are stronger than men, and are always pressing forward; but by arraying them in armour, and marching them forward in companies, you expose them to a terrible fire, which will check their progress for a long time to come. Science and religion progress only through the individual, through the Messiah. Have you a saint among you? Do you know where to look for one? Then find him and let him march forward. Fiery language, broad charity, two or three little miracles, and your Messiah alone will achieve more than all of you together."

The Abbé was silent, and Giovanni rose to speak.

"Perhaps the Abbé," said he, "has not yet been able to form a true conception of the value of the union we desire. We have just prayed together, seeking to stand united in the Divine Presence. This is sufficient to indicate the character of our union. In consideration of the ills afflicting the Church—which in substance are the result of discord between her mutable human element and her immutable element of Divine Truth—we wish, in our desire that He may remove these discords, to become one in the God of Truth; and we wish to feel ourselves united.