at bore his own name on a card.

Monsignor paused.

"Yes, I will, I think. I've a lot to think about."

But he could not sleep. The priest promised to awaken him
in plenty of time, and he slipped off his buckled shoes and
tried to compose his mind. But it was useless. His mind
whirled with wonder.

Once he slipped to a sitting position, drew back the little
curtain over the porthole, and stared out. There was little to be
seen; but by the sight of a lake of soft light that slid past at
some incalculable depth a dozen miles away, he perceived that
they had left the sea far behind and were spinning over the land
of France. He looked out long, revolving thoughts and
conjectures, striving to find some glimmer of memory by which he
might adjust these new experiences; but there was none. He was
like a child, with the brain of a man, plunged into a new mode of
existence, where everything seemed reversed, and yet
astonishingly obvious; it was the very simplicity that baffled
him. The Christian religion was true down (or up) even to the
Archangels that stand before God and control the powers of the
air. The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was
the God-Man tabernacling with men. Then where was the cause for
amazement that the world recognized these facts and acted upon
them; that men should salute the priest of God as His
representative and agent on earth; that air-ships (themselves
constructed on the model of the sea-gull--hollow feathers and
all) should carry the Blessed Sacrament on long journeys, that
communicants might not be deprived of their Daily Bread, and even
raise altars on board to the honour of those Powers under whose
protection they placed themselves. It was curious, too, he
reflected, that those who insist most upon the claims of Divinity
insist also upon the claims of humanity. It seemed suggestive
that it was the Catholics who were most aware of the competitive
passions of men and reckoned with them, while the Socialists
ignored them and failed.

So he sat--this poor man bewildered by simplicity and almost
shocked by the obvious--listening with unheeding ears to the
steady rush of air past the ship, voices talking naturally and
easily, heard through the roof above his head, an occasional
footstep, and once or twice a bell as the steersman communicated
some message to one of his subordinates. Here he sat--John
Masterman, Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Gregory XIX,
Secretary to Hi