“What!”
“Not the ghost of one,” I repeated. “We Catholics never have; we listen to the church and accept all she teaches. There is not such a thing amongst us as a view; we would not know what to do with one.”
“Good gracious! That reasonable beings should let themselves be so gul—so—that you should—in fact, it’s beyond belief!”
“No, that’s just what it is not beyond; it is our belief that binds our reason and puts views out of the question,” I said. “We have our faith propounded to us by the church, and the church is the infallible witness of the truth; we have not to make out a creed for ourselves, as you Protestants have.”
“Then why did God give us brains, if we are not to make use of them?” demanded Sybil. “I would not hand over my conscience to any man or any body of men living; I would rather take my Bible and make out the right and the wrong of it myself.”
“Suppose you make it out all wrong—for you admit there is a right and a wrong to it—what then?” I said.
“It does not much matter, so long as our intention is good. God Almighty does not expect us to be infallible.”
“Certainly not!” I replied; “that is precisely why he made his church infallible, to save us from our own fallibility and teach us what to believe and what not to believe. If I believe black and you believe white, we can’t both of us be right; one or other must be in error, and God, who is Truth itself, can’t approve equally truth and error?”
“I tell you what it is, Milly,” said Sybil, turning round sharply on Millicent, who was walking on the other side of her, “it is very bad for you to be discussing theology with Lilly Wallace in this way. Mind what I tell you, no good will come of it!”
“Why, I’ve not opened my lips!” protested silent Milly. “It is you who are discussing it; it was you began it!”