he
secular ruler of Rome, and therefore fallible and subject to sin like
other mortals. The Church has many parts to play; her stage wardrobe is
well furnished, and her actors so well instructed in their parts that
they believe themselves in all that they say. The bishop was speaking no
more than his exact conviction. He told me that in the Middle Ages
secular princes were bound by their coronation oath to accept the pope
as the arbiter of all quarrels between them. I asked where this oath
was, or what were the terms of it? The words, he said, were unimportant.
The fact was certain, and down to the fatal schism of the sixteenth
century the pope had always been allowed to arbitrate, and quarrels had
been prevented. I could but listen and wonder. He admitted that he had
read one set of books and I another, as it was clear that he must have
done.

In the midst of our differences we found we had many points of
agreement. We agreed that the breaking down of Church authority at the
Reformation had been a fatal disaster; that without a sense of
responsibility to a supernatural power, human beings would sink into
ingenious apes, that human society would become no more than a
congregation of apes, and that with differences of opinion and belief,
that sense was becoming more and more obscured. So long as all serious
men held the same convictions, and those convictions were embodied in
the law, religion could speak with authority. The authority being denied
or shaken, the fact itself became uncertain. The notion that everybody
had a right to think as he pleased was felt to be absurd in common
things. In every practical art or science the ignorant submitted to be
guided by those who were better instructed than themselves. Why should
they be left to their private judgment on subjects where to go wrong was
the more dangerous. All this was plain sailing. The corollary that if it
is to retain its influence the Church must not teach doctrines which
outrage the common sense of mankind as Luther led half Europe to believe
that the Church was doing in the sixteenth century, we agreed that we
would not dispute about. But I was interested to see that the leopard
had not changed its spots, that it merely readjusted its attitudes to
suit the modern taste, and that if it ever recovered its power it would
claw and scratch in the old way. Rome, like Pilate, may protest its
innocence of the blood which was spilt in its name and in its interests.