Father McClosky sprang from his seat and paced the room excitedly; but the very excess of his sympathy made him try to act as brake or cog-wheel upon his friend’s enthusiasm.
“Ye blatherskite!” he said, “I suppose ye’ll be after starting a new church, with yourself for pope!”
“On the contrary, I am orthodox of the orthodox,” said Mr. Clare. “I had a talk with my bishop a day or two ago, and found him very sympathetic, though with a reserved opinion that I was making too much ado about very little. No, McClosky, to every age its own conflicts. The sixteenth century did its work pretty thoroughly; a new Church in our days is an anachronism. The great battles of the nineteenth century must be fought, not among the hills of dogma, but in the plain of Conduct, which is watered by the river of Brotherly Love.”
“And do you expect a Catholic to join ye in underrating dogma?”
“God’s heaven bends alike over hill and plain,” said the other gently.
“Sure it’s a beautiful poet ye are,” said the priest with would-be sarcasm. He continued his walk for a few more moments, then said slowly, “But it’s not denyin’ I am that such soldiers as you are wanted on the right side. It’s mighty little brotherly love for any but themselves that Socialism has shown so far.”
“I hope to see the day,” said Ernest Clare calmly, “when the Golden Rule will be the Socialist’s motto, and the Sermon on the Mount his vade mecum. They must be if we are to have law and order, not a reign of anarchy. And that is why, Bryan, I feel that my course is not much ado about nothing. One way or the other, Socialism must come; and it will be all the difference in the world whether Christianity leads or follows the movement.”
“I make but little doubt that Holy Church will be equal to the occasion,” said Father McClosky; “sure she has the principle in herself, in her clergy and her religious orders. What is a monastery or nunnery but a commune?”
“You are right! And I fancy the Spirit of the Age has something to say to the revival of the religious orders in my own church, though our new monks and nuns would be the first to protest against that view of the matter. No, I don’t doubt the willingness of any body of Christians to fall into line, once the change is made and established by law; I only doubt our readiness to lead; yet, unless we do lead, I see small hope of the new kingdom being established.”
“Without violence,” corrected the priest.