Your Eminence," and he turned towards the Cardinal, "asks me why I
inculcate theories which suggest change, terror and confusion;--
Monseigneur, terror and confusion can never be caused save among the
ranks of those who have secret reason to be terrorised! There is
nothing terrifying in Truth to those who are true! If I distract and
alarm unworthy societies, revolting hypocrism, established shams and
miserable conventions, I am only the wielder of the broom that
sweeps out the cobwebs and the dust from a dirty house. My one
desire is to make the habitation of Christian souls clean! Terror
and confusion there will be,--there must be;--the time is ripe for
it--none of us can escape it--it is the prophesied period of 'men's
hearts failing them for fear, and looking after those things which
are coming on the earth.' I have not made the time. I am born OF it-
-one WITH it;--God arranges these things. I am not working for self
or for money,--I can live on bread and herbs and water. I want no
luxurious surroundings,--no softnesses--no delicacies--no
tendernesses--no sympathies! I set my face forward in the teeth of a
thousand winds of opposition, forward still forward! I seek nothing
for my own personal needs! I know that nothing can hinder me or keep
me back! Nothing! Monseigneur, I voice the cry of multitudes!--they
have, as it were, been wandering in the wilderness listening to the
Gospel for many days,--days which have accumulated to more than
eighteen hundred years; just as they did of old,--only the Master
did not send them away hungry--He fed them lest they should 'faint
by the way.
Pages:
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371