inds and enlarged intelligences have left them.
It is the anguish of the Unknown springing up again; but it is also only
a natural and momentary reaction after so much labour, on finding that
Science does not yet calm our thirst for justice, our desire for
security, or our ancient idea of an eternal after-life of enjoyment. In
order, however, that Catholicism might be born anew, as some seem to
think it will be, the social soil would have to change, and it cannot
change; it no longer possesses the sap needful for the renewal of a
decaying formula which schools and laboratories destroy more and more
each day. The ground is other than it once was, a different oak must
spring from it. May Science therefore have her religion, for such a
religion will soon be the only one possible for the coming democracies,
for the nations, whose knowledge ever increases whilst their Catholic
faith is already nought but dust.

And all at once, by way of conclusion, Pierre bethought himself of the
idiocy of the Congregation of the Index. It had condemned his book, and
would surely condemn the other one that he had thought of, should he ever
write it. A fine piece of work truly! To fall tooth and nail on the poor
books of an enthusiastic dreamer, in which chimera contended with
chimera! Yet the Congregation was so foolish as not to interdict that
little book which he held in his hands, that humble book which alone was
to be feared, which was the ever triumphant enemy that would surely
overthrow the Church. Modest it was in its cheap "get up" as a school
manual, but that did not matter: danger began with the very alphabet,
increased as knowledge was acquired, and burst forth with those _resumes_
of the physical, chemical, and natural sciences which bring the very
Creation, as described by Holy Writ, into question. However, the Index
dared not attempt to suppress those humble volumes, those terrible
soldiers of truth, those destroyers of faith. What was the use, then, of
all the money which Leo XIII drew from his hidden treasure of the Peter's
Pence to subvention Catholic schools, with the thought of forming the
believing generations which the papacy needed to enable it to conquer?
What was the use of that precious money if it was only to serve for the
purchase of similar insignificant yet formidable volumes, which could
never be sufficiently "cooked" and expurgated, but would always contain
too much Science, that growing Science which one day w