try of England, where the law is strong--and not only that, but
you have a public opinion that is stronger still--and where it is not
possible that a great Churchman should be a man living in open iniquity,
and an oppressor and a scoundrel--I will ask you to imagine yourselves
living in Italy, let one say in the Papal Territory itself, where the
reign of Christ should be, and where the poor should be cared for, if
there is Christianity still on the earth. And you are poor, let us say;
hardly knowing how to scrape together a handful of food sometimes; and
your children ragged and hungry; and you forced from time to time to go
to the Monte di Pieta to pawn your small belongings, or else you will
die, or you will see your children die before your eyes."

"Ah, yes, yes!" exclaimed Reitzei. "That is the worst of it--to see
one's children die! That is worse than one's own hunger."

"And you," continued Lind, quietly, but still with a little more
distinctness of emphasis, "you, you poor devils, you see a great
dignitary of the Church, a great prince among priests, living in
shameless luxury, in violation of every law, human and divine, with the
children of his mistresses set up in palaces, himself living on the fat
of the land. What law does he not break, this libertine, this usurer?
What makes the corn dear, so that you cannot get it for your starving
children?--what but this plunderer, this robber, seizing the funds that
extremity has dragged from the poor in order to buy up the grain of the
States? A pretty speculation! No wonder that you murmur and complain;
that you curse him under your breath, that you call him _il cardinale
affamatore_. And no wonder, if you happen to belong to a great
association that has promised to see justice done, no wonder you come to
that association and say, 'Masters, why cannot justice be done now? It
is too long to wait for the Millennium. Remove this oppressor from the
face of the earth: down with the Starving Cardinal!'"

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Reitzei, excitedly. Beratinsky sat silent and
sullen. Brand, with some strange foreboding of what was coming, still
sat with his hand tight closed on Natalie's ring.

"More," continued Lind--and now, if he was acting, it was a rare piece
of acting, for wrath and indignation gathered on his brow, and increased
the emphasis of his voice--"it is not only your purses, it is not only
your poor starved homesteadings that are attacked, it is the honor of