modern thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants to have
beauty about him, to be a "cabin passenger":

There's power in me and will to dominate
Which I must exercise, they hurt me else;
In many ways I need mankind's respect,
Obedience, and the love that's born of fear.

He wishes that he had faith--faith in anything; he understands that
faith is all-important--

Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat.

But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it--

But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn!

He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he asks
what there would be in it for him--

State the facts,
Read the text right, emancipate the world--
The emancipated world enjoys itself
With scarce a thank-you. Blougram told it first
It could not owe a farthing,--not to him
More than St. Paul!

So the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of the
contempt of intellectual people.

I pine among my million imbeciles
(You think) aware some dozen men of sense
Eye me and know me, whether I believe
In the last winking virgin as I vow,
And am a fool, or disbelieve in her,
And am a knave.

But, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of
faith, that is what

Gives all the advantage, makes the difference,
With the rough, purblind mass we seek to rule.
We are their lords, or they are free of us,
Just as we tighten or relax that hold.

So he continues, but not with entire satisfaction, in his role of
shepherd to those whom he calls "King Bomba's lazzaroni," and
"ragamuffin saints."

I wander into a Catholic bookstore and look to see what Bishop
Blougram is doing with his lazzaroni and his ragamuffin saints here in
this new country of the far West. It is easy to acquire the
information, for the saleswoman is polite and the prices fit my purse.
America is going to war, and Catholic boys are being drafted to be
trained for battle; so for ten cents I obtain a firmly bound little
pamphlet called "God's Armor, a Prayer Book for Soldiers." It is
marked "Copyright by the G.R.C. Central-Verein," and bears the "Nihil
Obstat" of the "Censor Theolog." and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes
Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici"--which last you may at first
fail to recognize as a well-known city on the Mississippi River. Do
you not feel the spell of ancient things, the magic of the past
creeping over you, as you read those