- —its poisonous growth till it now threatens to contaminate
the whole field of labor."
Cast down by these reflections, the good Cardinal proceeds to the Hotel Poitiers, a modest hostelry preferred by him to the Palace of the Archbishop of Rouen, another "Prince of the Church," a term which Cardinal Bonpré—like Miss Corelli—finds particularly detestable, especially when used in connection with a Christian Church wherein she thinks distinctive ranks are a mistake and even Anti-Christian.
At the inn a striking picture is drawn by the novelist of the evil effect upon the children of France brought about by the removal of religious instruction from the schools. The two charmingly precocious children of Jean and Madame Patoux are quite old in agnostic views and doubts. There also Bonpré has his first serious religious argument with the Archbishop of Rouen, whom he astonishes by declaring that the Church herself is responsible for the increase of ungodliness.
"If our Divine faith were lived Divinely there
would be no room for heresy or atheism. The
Church itself supplies the loophole for apostasy. . . .
In the leading points of creed I am very
steadfastly convinced;—namely, that Christ was
Divine, and that the following of His Gospel is the
saving of the immortal soul. But if you ask me
