scribe to all mankind, except a small body of plutocrats, is, he says,
neither so deep nor so universal as these persons represent it; and,
though in part it may arise from a robbery of the many by a rapacious
few, this is not the whole of the story. He points out that if a hundred
years ago the whole wealth of this country had been divided equally
among all, the masses would, as a whole, be poorer than they are now;
and that most of the wealth which is monopolized now by the few consists
not of abstractions which they perpetrate from a common stock, but of
additions to it which they have made themselves by their own talents and
enterprise. It is true, he proceeds, that if, having made these
additions, the few gave them away instead of retaining them for
themselves, as the principles of Socialism would demand, the wealth of
the many would be so far increased for the moment; but here comes the
practical question. If, of these additions, the few were to retain
nothing--if exceptional talent secured no proportionate reward--would
these additions, a part of which goes to the mass already, continue to
be made by anybody? This might be so if the great leaders of industry
had all of them the temperament of monks, whose one passion was not to
get, but to give; but to suppose this possible would be merely to dream
a dream. "It would be easier," he says, in conclusion, "far easier, to
make men Trappists than it would be to make them Socialists."

Animated by this last argument, the heroine is led to dream a dream of
her own. Let it be granted, she says to herself, that the leaders of
modern industry capable of accepting the Socialist gospel are few, and
will always remain few. Still there may be some exceptions; and it may
not be unreasonable to expect that, under the influence of the Catholic
Church, certain great factories might be assimilated to Trappist or
Franciscan monasteries, the profits of which the monks would consecrate
to social purposes, voluntarily living the lives of the poorest of the
poor themselves. Here, she argues, we should have examples, at all
events, by which all might be moved, though all were not fit to follow
them.

This outburst of a girl's idealism is considered by the priest with a
sympathetic, yet at the same time a cautious, interest. When, turning
from the priest, she opens her mind to the hero, he regards some of her
ideas as exaggerated; but the affection which he feels for her as a
lover makes