“What do you think of this act of submission?” He quickly read it and answered:
“It is just what we want from you.”
“All right,” I rejoined. “But I fear the bishop will not accept it. Do you not see that I have put a condition to our submission? I say that we will submit ourselves to the bishop’s authority, but only according to the Word of God and the gospel of Christ.”
“Is not that good?” quickly replied Mr. Dunn.
“Yes, my dear, Mr. Dunn, this is good, very good indeed,” I answered, “But my fear is that it is too good for the bishop and the Pope!”
“What do you mean?” he replied.
“I mean that though this act of submission is very good, I fear lest the Pope and the bishop reject it.”
“Please explain yourself more clearly,” answered the grand vicar. “I do not understand the reason for such a fear.”
“My dear Mr. Dunn,” I continued, “I must confess to you here, a thing which is known only to God. I must show you a bleeding wound which is in my soul for many years: A wound which has never been healed by any of the remedies I have applied to it. It is a wound which I never dared to show to any man, except to my confessor, though it has often made me suffer almost the tortures of hell. You know well that there is not a living priest who has studied the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, with more attention and earnestness, these last few years, than I have. It was not only to strengthen my own faith, but also, the faith of our people, and to be able to fight the battles of our church against her enemies, that I spent so many hours of my days and nights in those studies.
“But, though I am confounded and ashamed to confess it to you, I must do it. The more I have studied and compared the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers with the teachings of our church, the more my faith has been shaken, and the more I have been tempted to think, in spite of myself, that our church has, long ago, given up the Word of God and the Holy Fathers, in order to walk in the muddy and crooked ways of human and false traditions. Yes! the more I study, the more I am troubled by the strange and mysterious voices which haunt me day and night, saying: