But, having laid this matter straightly before Your Holiness, I am
nevertheless willing to accede to your desire, and see my young
niece and her father no more. For truly there is very little chance
of my so doing, as my age and health will scarcely permit me to
travel far from my diocese again, if indeed I ever return to it. The
same statement will apply with greater force to the friendship I
have lately formed with him whom you call 'heretic,'--Aubrey Leigh.
Your Holiness is mistaken in thinking that I have assisted him in
his work among the poor and desolate of London--though I would it
had been possible for me to do so! For I have seen such misery, such
godlessness, such despair, such self-destruction in this great
English city, the admitted centre of civilization, that I would give
my whole life twice, ay, three times over again to be able to
relieve it in ever so small a degree. The priests of our Church and
of all Churches are here,--they preach, but do very little in the
way of practice, and few like Aubrey Leigh sacrifice their personal
entity, their daily life, their sleep, their very thoughts, to help
the suffering of their fellow-men. Holy Father, the people whom
Aubrey Leigh works for, never believed in a God at all till this man
came among them.
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