' Inasmuch as if there is chance in
one thing there must be chance in another, and the solar system is
too mathematically designed to be a haphazard arrangement. With all
our cleverness, our logic, our geometrical skill, we can do nothing
so exact! As part of the solar system, you and I have our trifling
business to enact, Monsignor,--and to enact it properly, and with
satisfaction to our Supreme Employer, it seems to me that if we are
honest with the world and with each other, we shall be on the right
road."
"For my part, I am perfectly honest with you," said Moretti smiling
darkly, "I told you, and I tell you again, that to me you are a
heretic, accursed and excommunicate. You will, as the democrat 'Gys
Grandit,' no doubt feel a peculiar pleasure when your father is also
declared accursed and excommunicate. I have said, and I say again,
that the Church is a system of moral government, and that no laxity
can be permitted. It is a system founded on the Gospel of our Lord,
but to obey the commands of our Lord to the letter we should have to
find another world to live in--"
"Pardon me--I ask for information," interposed Cyrillon, "You of
course maintain that Christ was God in Man?"
"Most absolutely!"
"And yet you say that to obey His commands to the letter we should
have to find another world to live in! Strange! Since He made the
world and knows all our capabilities of progress! But have you never
fancied it possible that we may be forced to obey His commands to
the letter, or perish for refusing to do so?"
Moretti made as though he would have sprung forward,--his face was
drawn and rigid, his lips tightly compressed, but he had no answer
to this unanswerable logic.
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