“Are we not, in fine,” saith Sir Robert, “so far gone from original righteousness, that our imperfect nature hath lost power to imagine perfection?”
“Not a doubt thereof,” saith Father. “Look you but abroad in the world. You shall find pride lauded and called high spirit and nobleness: covetousness is prudence and good thrift: flattery and conformity to the world are good nature and kindliness. Every blast from Hell hath been renamed after one of the breezes of Heaven.”
There was silence so long after this that I reckoned the discourse were o’er. When all suddenly saith Sir Robert:—
“Louvaine, have you much hope for the future—whether of the Church or of the world?”
“All hope in God: none out of Him.”
“Nay, come closer,” saith Sir Robert. “What shall hap in the next few reigns?”
“‘I will overturn, overturn, overturn, until He come whose right it is: and I will give it Him.’ There is our pole-star, Robin: and I see no other stars. ‘This same Jesus shall so come.’ ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus!’”
“Yet may He not be said to ‘come’ by the Spirit shed abroad in the hearts of men, and so the world be regenerated?”
“Find that in God’s Word, Robin, afore He comes, and I will welcome it with all my heart,” answers Father. “I could never see it there. I see there a mighty spread of knowledge, and civility (civilisation), and communications of men—as hath been since the invention of printing, and may be destined to spread yet much further abroad. But knowledge is not faith, nor is civility Christianity. And, in fine, He is to come as He went. He did not go invisibly in the hearts of men.”
“But ‘the kingdom of God is within you.’”