The Legate rose from his seat, and fixed his eyes upon the Prelate's face:
"There are many kinds of oppressors, but the most infamous, are those who use the Church of God, as the engine of their atrocious crimes."
This remark fell like a thunderbolt.
The Prelate slowly rose from his chair, his face flushed and his chest heaving.
"Sir!" he cried in a voice of thunder.
"Nay—you need not raise your voice,—much less confront me with that frowning brow. You know me and know the position which I hold. You know that I am above your reach,—that, perchance, a word from me, uttered in the proper place, might stop your career, even at the threshold. I know you, and know that you belong to the party, which, for ages, has made our church the instrument of the most infernal wrongs—"
"Sir!" again ejaculated the Prelate.
"A party, whose noblest monument is made of the skeletons, the racks and thumbscrews of the Inquisition, and whose history can only be clearly read, save by the torchlight of St. Bartholomew—"
"This from you, sir,—"
"A party whose avowed atheism produced the French Revolution, and whose cloaked atheism is even now sowing the seeds of social hell-fire, in this country and in Europe—"