that he would never
submit, would never be able to resign himself and kill his hope in
salvation by love, but would rather reply by a fresh book, in which he
would say in what new soil the new religion would spring up. Yes, a
flaming book against Rome, in which he would set down all he had seen, a
book which would depict the real Rome, the Rome which knows neither
charity nor love, and is dying in the pride of its purple! He had spoken
of returning to Paris, leaving the Church and going to the point of
schism. Well, his luggage now lay there packed, he was going off and he
would write that book, he would be the great schismatic who was awaited!
Did not everything foretell approaching schism amidst that great movement
of men's minds, weary of old mummified dogmas and yet hungering for the
divine? Even Leo XIII must be conscious of it, for his whole policy, his
whole effort towards Christian unity, his assumed affection for the
democracy had no other object than that of grouping the whole family
around the papacy, and consolidating it so as to render the Pope
invincible in the approaching struggle. But the times had come,
Catholicism would soon find that it could grant no more political
concessions without perishing, that at Rome it was reduced to the
immobility of an ancient hieratic idol, and that only in the lands of
propaganda, where it was fighting against other religions, could further
evolution take place. It was, indeed, for this reason that Rome was
condemned, the more so as the abolition of the temporal power, by
accustoming men's minds to the idea of a purely spiritual papacy, seemed
likely to conduce to the rise of some anti-pope, far away, whilst the
successor of St. Peter was compelled to cling stubbornly to his Apostolic
and Roman fiction. A bishop, a priest would arise--where, who could tell?
Perhaps yonder in that free America, where there are priests whom the
struggle for life has turned into convinced socialists, into ardent
democrats, who are ready to go forward with the coming century. And
whilst Rome remains unable to relinquish aught of her past, aught of her
mysteries and dogmas, that priest will relinquish all of those things
which fall from one in dust. Ah! to be that priest, to be that great
reformer, that saviour of modern society, what a vast dream, what a part,
akin to that of a Messiah summoned by the nations in distress. For a
moment Pierre was transported as by a breeze of hope and triumph.