yet
formulate his conduct. His sense of honor is acute. Your Eminence can
see that his word is sacred. His oath once taken would bind him
eternally. _It is for us to secure that oath!_"

"And how?" The Archbishop leaned forward eagerly.

"We, cooeperating with his parents, will cater to his consuming passion
for learning, and offer him the education which the limited resources
of his family cannot provide. We save him from the drudgery of
commercialism, and open to him the life of the scholar. We suggest to
him a career consecrated to study and holy service. The Church
educates him--he serves his fellow-men through her. Once ordained, his
character is such, I believe, that he could never become an apostate.
And, whatever his services to Holy Church may be thereafter, she at
least will have effectually disposed of a possible opponent. She has
all to gain, and nothing to lose by such procedure. Unless I greatly
mistake the Rincon character, the lad will yield to our inducements
and his mother's prayers, the charm of the Church and the bias of her
tutelage, and ultimately take the oath of ordination. After that--"

"My faithful adviser," interrupted the Archbishop genially, as visions
of the Cardinal's hat for eminent services hovered before him, "write
immediately to Monsignor, Rector of the _Seminario_, in Rome. Say that
he must at once receive, at our expense and on our recommendation, a
lad of twelve, who greatly desires to be trained for the priesthood."

CHAPTER 5

Thus did the Church open her arms to receive her wandering child. Thus
did her infallible wisdom, as expressed through her zealous agents in
Seville, essay to solve the perplexing problems of this agitated
little mind, and whisper to its confused throbbing, "Peace, be still."
The final disposition came to the boy not without some measure of
relief, despite, his protest. The long days of argument and pleading,
of assurance that within the Church he should find abundant and
satisfactory answers to his questions, and of explanations which he
was adjured to receive on faith until such time as he might be able to
prove their soundness, had utterly exhausted his sensitive little
soul, and left him without the combative energy or will for further
remonstrance.

Nor was the conflict solely a matching of his convictions against
the desires of his parents and the persuasions of the Archbishop and
his loyal secretary. The boy's hunger for learning alon