“Just so,” said Anthony, beginning to warm to his favourite theme. “The Church is the nation regarded as religious. When England wars on land it is through her army, which is herself under arms; when on sea she embarks in the navy; and in the warfare with spiritual powers, it is through her Church. And surely in this way the Church must always be the Church of the people. The Englishman and the Spaniard are like cat and dog; they like not the same food nor the same kind of coat; I hear that their buildings are not like ours; their language, nay, their faces and minds, are not like ours. Then why should be their prayers and their religion? I quarrel with no foreigner’s faith; it is God who made us so.”
Anthony stopped, breathless with his unusual eloquence; but it was the subject that lay nearest to his heart at present, and he found no lack of words. The prisoner had watched him with twinkling eyes, nodding his head as if in agreement; and when he had finished his little speech, nodded again in meditative silence.
“It is complete,” he answered, “complete. And as a theory would be convincing; and I envy you, Master Norris, for you stand on the top of the wave. That is what England holds. But, my dear sir, Christ our Lord refused such a kingdom as that. My kingdom, He said, is not of this world—is not, that is, ruled by the world’s divisions and systems. You have described Babel,—every nation with its own language. But it was to undo Babel and to build one spiritual city that our Saviour came down, and sent the Holy Ghost to make the Church at Pentecost out of Arabians and Medes and Elamites—to break down the partition-walls, as the apostle tells us,—that there be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian—and to establish one vast kingdom (which for that very reason we name Catholic), to destroy differences between nation and nation, by lifting each to be of the People of God—to pull down Babel, the City of Confusion, and build Jerusalem the City of Peace. Dear God!” cried Mr. Buxton, rising in his excitement, and standing over Anthony, who looked at him astonished and bewildered. “You and your England would parcel out the Kingdom of heaven into national Churches, as you name them—among all the kingdoms of the world; and yet you call yourselves the servants of Him who came to do just the opposite—yes, and who will do it, in spite of you, and make the kingdoms of this world, instead, the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Why, if each nation is to have her Church, why not each county and each town—yes, and each separate soul, too; for all are different! Nay, nay, Master Norris, you are blinded by the Prince of this world. He is shewing you even now from an high mountain the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them: lift your eyes, dear lad, to the hills from whence cometh your help; those hills higher than the mountain where you stand; and see the new Jerusalem, and the glory of her, coming down from God to dwell with men.”
Mr. Buxton stood, his eyes blazing, plainly carried away wholly by enthusiasm; and Anthony, in spite of himself, could not be angry. He moistened his lips once or twice.
“Well, sir; of course I hold with what you say, in one sense; but it is not come yet; and never will, till our Lord comes back to make all plain.”
“Not come yet?” cried the other, “Not come yet! Why, what is the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but that? There you have one visible kingdom, gathered out of every nation and tongue and people, as the apostle said. I have a little estate in France, Master Norris, where I go sometimes; and there are folk in their wooden shoes, talking a different human tongue to me, but, thank God! the same divine one—of contrition and adoration and prayer. There we have the same mass, the same priesthood, the same blessed sacrament and the same Faith, as in my own little oratory at Stanfield. Go to Spain, Africa, Rome, India; wherever Christ is preached; there is the Church as it is here—the City of Peace. And as for you and your Church! with whom do you hold communion?”
This stung Anthony, and he answered impulsively.
“In Geneva and Frankfort, at least, there are folk who speak the same divine tongue, as you call it, as we do; they and we are agreed in matters of faith.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Burton sharply, “then what becomes of your Nationalism, and the varied temperaments that you told me God had made?”
Anthony bit his lip; he had overshot his mark. But the other swept on; and as he talked began to step up and down the little room, in a kind of rhapsody.