ABSTRACT
Cardinal Power sat alone in his front drawing-room at Archbishop’s House, fatigued with preaching a long sermon at Sunday vespers at one of the Kensington churches, and depressed by lugubrious thoughts inevitably suggested by the bad news from headquarters which we have already sketched. Even independently of that, it seemed to him that the Catholic interest was on the wane. True, it had been so before many times in history, but this time the conditions were different. In former ages persecution was looked upon as a fiery trial out of which the faithful emerged more strong in their faith than ever; now it had no such effect; on the contrary, its effect was to show men the disagreeable side of a profession 276of religion about which they were not very keen, even on its pleasant side. It did not evoke their indignation against the persecutor, nor their chivalrous zeal for the persecuted; it merely set them thinking that perhaps they had better leave the other world alone, and look more sharply after their interests in this. The practical result of such a change of mind was a diminution of the material support hitherto given to the Church; services were less well attended, and those who did come gave less at the offertory. It looked as if Catholicism were going into a decline, dying of neglect and inanition, through the growing coldness of its members, who had caught the spirit of the age and of the Revolution, and become sceptical, and apathetic, and self-willed. Radicalism in politics, and atheism regarding religion, those were the winning forces of to-day; how were they to be encountered? for the old armoury of sacerdotal intimidation was either laughed to scorn, or used as an argument to justify persecution of the Church. Clearly this state of things must be put an end to somehow, or it would soon put an end to the ancient priesthood, not by the rack, and dungeon, and faggot, and all that ugly sort of romance, but by the modern prosaic and far more efficacious method of simply taking away the means of subsistence. In these days, the secular arm of the church is money; and if the laity are going to refuse to pay for the salvation of their souls, what is to be done? There is only one thing to be done – their devotion must be bought back at any price, any sacrifice, any conceivable compact with heaven, earth, or hell. But is there any price which will buy it? How if there be none? Then the days of Catholicism, of Christianity, of religion, are numbered.
