"Because you have too high an opinion of Leo?"

"No; but he was a Pope of Rome, and I simply cannot believe it."

"Some popes of Rome have been awful examples for the young."

"So have men in all positions."

He smiled and shook his head. "Yes, but when they set up as Christ's
apostles, they really should not indulge too freely in assassination and
torture: at least, not out of business hours."

Then in a reflective, somewhat sorrowful manner, he continued, "But the
Roman Enterprise has two enemies that are thorns in the flesh, the
bath-tub and the printing-press. Wherever they march in, she marches
out. The three can't live together."

Of this statement there was no recognition, except a straightening up in
the steamer-chair.

He continued pleasantly, "In England, Germany, and America, for
instance, where these adversaries are in vogue, Catholicism quits. As
the devil shrinks from the sign of the Cross, so does the Holy
Enterprise gather up its bloody skirts and decamp."

"Perhaps you forget that in the United States alone there are more than
seven million Catholics."

"But they are not victims of the bath-tub habit."

"That is not true! There are thousands of exceptions!"

He laughed--an amiable, jolly, yet triumphant laugh--as he retorted,
"You admit the truth of it when you call them exceptions."

In the dim light which had gathered over everything, he could see the
delicate eyebrows drawing together in a frown. But he went on,
cheerfully, as if giving offence had not occurred to him, "Now Spain is
enthusiastically Catholic. And for ignorance,--solid, comprehensive,
reliable ignorance,--there is nothing like it in the solar system. You
can't hurt it with a hammer. It defies competition. If a Spaniard were
to meet a bath-tub on a lonely highway, he would cross himself and run."

"Their ignorance is their own fault. Education and progress have always
been encouraged by the Catholic Church."

"Encouraged? Oh!"

"Certainly."

"You mean by the stake and boiling lead?"

"I do not."

"When, for example, she notified Galileo that she would roast him alive,
as she had already roasted Bruno, if he persisted in his heresy that the
earth was round instead of flat?"

"If you are happy in that belief, I will not destroy it."

"It is a historic fact, but I am no happier for believing it. However,
too much education is a nuisance, and very likely Mamma Church was wise
in toasting an astronomer now and then