"Do you really think," asked Mark, "that those outside the Church expect such a sacrifice?"
Father Murray did not hesitate about his answer.
"Expect it? They demand it. Why, my dear Mark, even as a Presbyterian minister I expected it of the men I almost hated. I never liked priests then. Instinctively I classed them as my enemies, even as my personal enemies. Deep down in my heart I knew that, with the Catholic Church eliminated from Christianity, the whole fabric tottered and fell, and Christ was stamped with the mark of an impostor and a failure—His life, His wonders, and His death, shams. Instinctively I knew, too, that without the Catholic Church the Christian world would fall to the level of Rome at its worst, and that every enemy of Christ turned his face against her priests. I knew that every real atheist, every licentious man, most revolutionists, every anarchist, hated a priest. It annoyed me to think that they didn't hate me, the representative, as I thought, of a purer religion. But they did not hate me at all. They ignored the sacredness of my calling, and classed me with themselves because of what they thought was the common bond of enmity to the priest. I resented that, for, while I was against their enemy, I certainly was not with them. The anomaly of my position increased my bitterness toward priests until I came almost to welcome a scandal among them, even though I knew that every scandal reacted on my own kind. But each rare scandal served to throw into clearer relief the high honor and stern purity of the great mass of those men who had forsaken all to follow Christ. And my vague feeling of satisfaction was tempered by an insistent sense of my own injustice which would not be denied, for I knew that I was demanding of the Catholic priest greater things than I demanded of any other men. Even while I judged—and, judging, condemned—I knew that I was measuring him by his own magnificent standard, the very seeking of which made him worthy of honor. To have sought the highest goal and failed is better than never to have sought at all. So long as life lasts, no failure is forever; it is always possible to arise and return to the path. And a fall should call forth the charity of the beholder, leading him closer to God. But there is no charity for the Catholic priest who stumbles—no return save in spaces hidden from the world. The most arrant criminals, the most dangerous atheists, the most sincere Protestants, demand of the priest not only literal obedience to his vows, but a sublime observance of their spirit. Why, Mark, you demand it yourself—you know you do."
For a moment Mark did not answer.
"Yes," he said, after a pause, "I do demand it. I only wondered if others felt as I do. This job of trying to analyze one's own emotions and thoughts is a difficult one. I have been trying to do it for years. Frankly, there are things I cannot grasp. Let me put one of them before you now."
"Go on," said Father Murray. "I am glad the conversation is off the worry."
"You remember, Father," said Mark, "the day I met you in your study that eventful Sunday in London?"
The priest nodded.
"I had decided then to go out of the church, as I told you, to get away from my faith. I thought that I had come to that decision with a clear conscience, but I know now that I had merely built up a false one and that that was why I sought you out—not to give up, but to defy you, and defy my own heart at the same time. I thought that if I could justify myself before such a man as you it would set things at rest within me for the remainder of my days. I did not justify myself. Ever since that day I have been attracted by the open doors of Catholic churches. I never pass one without seeing that open door. The minute I seriously think of religion the picture of an open church door is in front of me; it has become almost an obsession. I seem to see a hand beckoning from that door; some day I shall see more than the hand—my mother's face will be behind it. I can't get away from it—and I can't understand why."
Father Murray's eyes were serious.