Peter's!" answered Manuel, with a thrill of passion in his
voice as he uttered the name, "St. Peter's,--the huge Theatre
misnamed a Church! Oh, dear friend!--do not look at me thus! Surely
you must feel that what I say is true? Surely you know that there is
nothing of the loving God in that vast Cruelty of a place, where
wealth and ostentation vie with intolerant officialism, bigotry and
superstition!--where even the marble columns have been stolen from
the temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the names of Isis
and Jupiter wrought in the truthful stone;--where theft, rapine and
murder have helped to build the miscalled Christian fane! You cannot
in your heart of hearts feel it to be the abode of Christ; your
soul, bared to the sight of God, repudiates it as a Lie! Yes!"--For,
startled and carried away by the boy's fervour, Cardinal Felix had
risen, and now stood upright, making a feeble gesture with his
hands, as though seeking to keep back the crushing weight of some
too overwhelming conviction,--"Yes--you would silence me!--but you
cannot!--I read your heart! You love God . . . and I--I love Him too!
You would serve Him!--and I--I would obey Him! Ah, do not struggle
with yourself, dear and noble friend! If you were thrice crowned a
martyr and saint you could not see otherwise than clearly--you could
not but accept Truth when Truth is manifested to you,--you could not
swear falsely before God! Would the Christ not say now as He said so
many centuries ago--'My House is called the house of prayer, but ye
have made it a den of thieves!' Is it not truly a den of thieves?
What has the Man of Sorrows to do with all the evil splendour of St.
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