Father Hervey went slowly and cautiously down the front steps, holding
to the rail with his right hand and putting his left foot forward for
each separate step. He did not remember being so weary and discouraged
for many years. He walked back to the parish house, his head slightly
bowed, his hands clasped behind him, unnoting, or nodding slightly and
in silence to those who greeted him.
Among all the backslidings that he could remember in his long pastorate
there had been few, perhaps none, that had saddened him more than this
one. He had grieved for many a vain and foolish sheep that had strayed
away into the briers of sin, not to be found again, until, wounded and
wasted, it stumbled home to die. For such is the nature of sheep and
poor souls.
But Georgia's case was not within that parable. She was not weak or
will-less. Her sin had been with cold deliberation, in open, defiant
rebellion against the Church, knowing the price of what she did. Very
well, let her pay it. His old lips drew together in a thin bloodless
line, as in his mind he condemned her in reprisal for her few years of
rebellious happiness to eternal and infinite woe. God was merciful,
but also he was just, and that was justice. Yet the priest could not
persist in the mood. Presently, in spite of himself he softened toward
her. That she--the little child whom he had held in his arms and
breathed upon at the baptismal font, had come at last to this--
It was the age, this wicked age of atheism, he told himself fiercely,
that had corrupted her. She could not be altogether, altogether to
blame that the current had been too swift for her to swim against.
Perhaps the gentle Savior would yet touch her spirit with His mercy and
guide her at last to the foot of His throne.
Doubt poisoned the very air she breathed; it broke out like boils and
deep sores in the newspapers and books, symptoms of the corruption
beneath; it was strident in the crass levity of the talk and slang of
the street. It could not be escaped.
America, save for the Catholic fifteen million, doubted. The faithful
stood like an island rising out of the waters of agnosticism. Was it
strange that where the waves beat hardest, some of the sand was washed
away?
Fifty years ago when he was a young man there had arisen in the world
the great anti-Christ, who had been more harmful than Luther--Darwin,
the monkey man. The Protestant churches, as ever uninspired, had first
fought, then compromised with him. They tried to swallow and digest
Darwinism. But Darwinism had digested them. The anthropoid ape had
shaken the throne of Luther's Jehovan God. The greater anti-Christ had
consumed the lesser.
The Church alone stood firm. She had admitted no orang-outangs to her
communion table, and now her policy was justified by its fruits. Her
faithful remained the only Christians in Christendom.
_Ecclesia Depopulata_, ran the old prophecy, the Church deserted. And
the time was near upon them for the fulfillment of the words. France,
Italy, Portugal, and even Spain, were in revolution against the Keys of
Peter. The evil days were coming, _Ecclesia Depopulata_.
But a new age of faith was to follow, so also it was prophesied. The
deathless Church could not die. Once again she was to rule a pious
world in might, majesty, dominion and power--and her sway would endure
until the last day.
He fell upon his knees in his bare ascetic study and presently arose
refreshed, a fighting veteran in the army that will make no peace but a
victor's.