al to be
represented at the proposed General Council at Mantua.

* * * * *

The tidings of all this, filtering in to the house at Lewes by priests
and Religious who stayed there from time to time, did not tend to
reassure those who looked for peace. The assault was not going to stop
at matters of discipline; it was dogma that was aimed at, and, worse
even than that, the foundation on which dogma rested. It was not an
affair of Religious Houses, or even of morality; there was concerned the
very Rock itself on which Christendom based all faith and morals. If it
was once admitted that a National Church, apart from the See of Rome,
could in the smallest degree adjudicate on a point of doctrine, the
unity of the Catholic Church as understood by every monk in the house,
was immediately ruptured.

Again and again in chapter there were terrible scenes. The Prior raved
weakly, crying that it was not the part of a good Catholic to resist his
prince, that the Apostle himself enjoined obedience to those in
authority; that the new light of learning had illuminated perplexing
problems; and that in the uncertainty it was safer to follow the certain
duty of civil obedience. Dom Anthony answered that a greater than St.
Paul had bidden His followers to render to God the things that were
God's; that St. Peter was crucified sooner than obey Nero--and the Prior
cried out for silence; and that he could not hear his Christian King
likened to the heathen emperor. Monk after monk would rise; one
following his Prior, and disclaiming personal learning and
responsibility; another with ironic deference saying that a man's soul
was his own, and that not even a Religious Superior could release from
the biddings of conscience; another would balance himself between the
parties, declaring that the distinction of duties was insoluble; that in
such a case as this it was impossible to know what was due to God and
what to man. Yet another voice would rise from time to time declaring
that the tales that they heard were incredible; that it was impossible
that the King should intend such evil against the Church; he still heard
his three masses a day as he had always done; there was no more ardent
defender of the Sacrament of the Altar.

Chris used to steady himself in this storm of words as well as he could,
by reflecting that he probably would not have to make a decision, for it
would be done for him, at least as regarded hi