ants of the king and the beggar, the artist
and the devotee . . . there is free room for all within my heaven-
wide bosom. Infallibility is not the exclusive heritage of one
proud and ignorant Island, but of a system which knows no
distinction of language, race, or clime. The communion of saints is
not a bygone tale, for my saints, redeemed from every age and every
nation under heaven, still live, and love, and help and intercede.
The union of heaven and earth is not a barbaric myth; for I have
still my miracles, my Host, my exorcism, my absolution. The present
rule of God is still, as ever, a living reality; for I rule in His
name, and fulfil all His will."

'How can I turn away from such a voice? What if some of her
doctrines may startle my untutored and ignorant understanding? . . .
If she is the appointed teacher, she will know best what truths to
teach. . . . The disciple is not above his master . . . or wise in
requiring him to demonstrate the abstrusest problems . . . spiritual
problems, too . . . before he allows his right to teach the
elements. Humbly I must enter the temple porch; gradually and
trustfully proceed with my initiation. . . . When that is past, and
not before . . . shall I be a fit judge of the mysteries of the
inner shrine.

'There . . . I have written a long letter . . . with my own heart's
blood. . . . Think over it well, before you despise it. . . . And
if you can refute it for me, and sweep the whole away like a wild
dream when one awakes, none will be more thankful--paradoxical as it
may seem--than your unhappy Cousin.'

And Lancelot did consider that letter, and answered it as follows:--

'It is a relief to me at least, dear Luke, that you are going to
Rome in search of a great idea, and not merely from selfish
superstitious terror (as I should call it) about the "salvation of
your soul." And it is a new and very important thought to me, that
Rome's scheme of this world, rather than of the next, forms her
chief allurement. But as for that flesh and spirit question, or the
apostolic succession one either; all you seem to me, as a looker on,
to have logically proved, is that Protestants, orthodox and
unorthodox, must be a little more scientific and careful in their
use of the terms. But as for adopting your use of them, and the
consequences thereof--you must pardon me, and I suspect, them too.
Not that. Anything but that. Whatever is