nce! Ah, if he
could have thrown aside the mummery and pagan ceremonialism which he
was there to conduct, and have sat down among them, as Jesus was wont
to do on those still mornings in Galilee! Instead, he stood before
them an apostate vassal of Rome, hypocritically using the Church to
shield and maintain himself in Simiti while he reared away from her
the child Carmen.

Yet, what could he do? He had heard the call; and he had answered,
"Master, here am I." And now he was occupying, while waiting to be
led, step by step, out of his cruelly anomalous position and into his
rightful domain. A traitor to Holy Church? Nay, he thought he would
have been a traitor to all that was best and holiest within himself
had he done otherwise. In the name of the Church he would serve these
humble people. Serving them, he honored the Master. And honoring
Christ, he could not dishonor the Church.

Jose's conduct of the Mass was perfunctory. Vainly he strove to hold
in thought the symbolism of the service, the offering of Christ as a
propitiation for the world's sins. But gradually the folly of Milton's
extravagant, wild dream, which the poet clothed in such imperishable
beauty, stole over him and blinded this vision. He saw the Holy
Trinity sitting in solemn council in the courts of heaven. He heard
their perplexed discussion of the ravages of Satan in the terrestrial
paradise below. He heard the Father pronounce His awful curse upon
mankind. And he beheld the Son rise and with celestial magnanimity
offer himself as the sacrificial lamb, whose blood should wash away
the serpent-stain of sin. How inept the whole drama!

And then he thought of Carmen. He had seen her, as he looked out over
his people, sitting with Dona Maria, arrayed in a clean white frock,
and swinging her plump bare legs beneath the bench, while wonder and
amazement peered out from her big brown eyes as she followed his every
move. What would such things mean to her, whose God was ever-present
good? What did they mean to the priest himself, who was beginning to
see Him as infinite, divine mind, knowing no evil--the One whose
thoughts are not as ours?

He took up the holy water and sprinkled the assemblage. "Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than
snow." But how is the human mind purged of error? By giving it truth.
And does the infinite mind purge the thought of men in any other way?
His mind was full as he took up the Missal