“I sometimes feel,” said the cardinal, “that I may have been too punctilious in avoiding conversation with you on a subject the most interesting and important to man. But I felt a delicacy in exerting my influence as a guardian on a subject my relations to which, when your dear father appointed me to that office, were so different from those which now exist. But you are now your own master; I can use no control over you but that influence which the words of truth must always exercise over an ingenuous mind.”
His eminence paused for a moment and looked at his companion; but Lothair remained silent, with his eyes fixed upon the ground.
“It has always been a source of satisfaction, I would even say consolation, to me,” resumed the cardinal, “to know you were a religious man; that your disposition was reverential, which is the highest order of temperament, and brings us nearest to the angels. But we live in times of difficulty and danger—extreme difficulty and danger; a religious disposition may suffice for youth in the tranquil hour, and he may find, in due season, his appointed resting-place: but these are days of imminent peril; the soul requires a sanctuary. Is yours at hand?”
The cardinal paused, and Lothair was obliged to meet a direct appeal. He said then, after a momentary hesitation: “When you last spoke to me, sir, on these grave matters, I said I was in a state of great despondency. My situation now is not so much despondent as perplexed.”
“And I wish you to tell me the nature of your perplexity,” replied the cardinal, “for there is no anxious embarrassment of mind which Divine truth cannot disentangle and allay.”
“Well,” said Lothair, “I must say I am often perplexed at the differences which obtrude themselves between Divine truth and human knowledge.”
“Those are inevitable,” said the cardinal. “Divine truth being unchangeable, and human knowledge changing every century; rather, I should say, every generation.”
“Perhaps, instead of human knowledge, I should have said human progress,” rejoined Lothair.
“Exactly,” said the cardinal, “but what is progress? Movement. But what if it be movement in the wrong direction? What if it be a departure from Divine truth?”
“But I cannot understand why religion should be inconsistent with civilization,” said Lothair.