eatened to become a redoubtable
enemy." The forces operating for and against this desideratum seemed
to him about equally matched. The boy was still very young. His mind
was as yet in the formative period, and would be for some years. If
the Church could secure her hold upon him during this period she would
doubtless retain it for all time; for, as the sagacious secretary so
often quoted to his superior, "Once a priest, always a priest,"
emphasizing the tenet that the character imprinted by ordination is
ineffaceable.

As for the secretary, he was a Rincon, proud and bigoted, and withal
fanatically loyal to the Church as an institution, whatever its or
his own degree of genuine piety. It was deeply galling to his
ecclesiastical pride to see the threatened development of heretical
tendencies in a scion of his house. These were weeds which must
and should be choked, cost what it might! To this end any means were
justified, for "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?" And the Rincon soul had been molded centuries
ago. The secretary hated the rapidly developing "scientific" spirit
of the age and the "higher criticism" with a genuine and deadly
hatred. His curse rested upon all modern culture. To him, the Jesuit
college at Rome had established the level of intellectual freedom.
He worshiped the landmarks which the Fathers had set, and he would
have opposed their removal with his life. No, the Rincon traditions
must be preserved at whatever cost! The heretical buddings within Jose
should be checked; he should enter the priesthood; his thinking
should be directed into proper channels; his mind should be bent into
conformity with Holy Church! If not--but there was no alternative.
The all-powerful Church could and would accomplish it.

In the choice of Rafael de Rincon as secretary and assistant, the
Archbishop had secured to himself a man of vast knowledge of
ecclesiastical matters, of great acumen, and exceptional ability. The
man was a Jesuit, and a positive, dynamic representative of all that
the order stands for. He was now in his sixty-eighth year, but as
vigorous of mind and body as if he bore but half his burden of age.
For some years prior to his connection with the See of Seville he had
served in the royal household at Madrid. But, presumably at the
request of Queen Isabella, he had been peremptorily summoned to Rome
some three years before her exile; and when he again left the Etern