"A beautiful dream, no more, my son. Take the Crusades; how easy is it for critics to aver that an intriguing Pope started them to increase his own glory and gratify his sense of power. Yet hast ever thought whether the peoples of Europe would not have fallen upon and destroyed one another but for the wise craft of a leader who united them by finding a common enemy? Now do not misunderstand me; no one more than I realizes the awful sins of the Schismatic Popes, the terrible greed of some of the powerful Churchmen, their criminal neglect of their charges; no one realizes more that the people have wrongs that should be righted. But I am sure it is for the good of the people that these wrongs be righted from within the Church. The people have no better friend than the Church. It has been the one Institution which has sought out the individual, and asked of him only what service he could render it. In its bosom it has held the divine spark of the equality of man, and kept it there and protected it while the world was not yet ready for it. It has nourished it until it will be a flame great enough to light the torch of Freedom.
"We agree, save that you think the world is ripe for that spark, and I know that it is not; loosed now, it will but scorch and sear; it is not ready to illumine."
Annys had listened with profound earnestness to the impetuous words of the great prelate; before he could respond, the speaker continued, with a great light of enthusiasm in his face:—
"Think on the refrain which you know well. Con it when you are tempted to think that the Church has done naught for the people:—
"'Had they (the priests) been out of religion,
They must have hanged at the plowe.
Threshing and diking fro towne to towne,
With sorrie meat, and not halfe ynowe.'
"What can that mean, save that the Church hath taken up into its bosom the men who otherwise had no career save the plough? True, the time has come when the Church once again needs to be drawn nearer to the people—the people who all yearn for it and need it. Do not lead the people away from it, lest in the end you destroy their faith and undo them. The Church needs just such workers as thou; come to us and work with us. Stand no longer without!"
At this appeal, the young poor priest suddenly roused himself.