Dawn of All eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 328 pages of information about Dawn of All.

Dawn of All eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 328 pages of information about Dawn of All.

“Monsignor, this isn’t kind to me,” rang out the young voice sternly; and the elder man recovered himself sharply.  “Please talk to me quietly.  Father Abbot tells me you will see the Cardinal.”

“I’ll do anything—­anything in my power.  Tell me what I can do.”

He had recovered himself, as under a douche of water, at the sharpness of the monk’s tone just now.  He felt but one thing at this instant, that he would strain every force he had to hinder this crime.  He remained motionless, conscious of that sensation of intense tightness of nerve and sinew in which an overpressed mind expresses itself.

The monk sat down, on the farther side of the table.

“That’s better, Monsignor,” he said, smiling. . . .  “Well, there’s really not much to do.  Insanity seems the only possible plea.”

He smiled again, brilliantly.

“Tell me the whole thing,” said the prelate suddenly and hoarsely.  “Just the outline.  I don’t understand; and I can do nothing unless I do.”

“You haven’t followed the case?”

Monsignor shook his head.  The monk considered again.

“Well,” he said.  “This is the outline; I’ll leave out technical details.  I have written a book (which will never see the light now) and I sent an abstract of it to Rome, giving my main thesis.  It’s on the miraculous element in Religion.  I’m a Doctor in Physical Science, you know, as well as in Theology.  Now there’s a certain class of cure (I won’t bother you with details, but a certain class of cure) that has always been claimed by theologians as evidently supernatural.  And I’ll acknowledge at once that one or two of the decrees of the Council of 1960 certainly seem to support them.  But my thesis is, first, that these cures are perfectly explicable by natural means, and secondly, that therefore these decrees must be interpreted in a sense not usually received by theologians, and that they do not cover the cases in dispute.  I’m not a wilful heretic, and I accept absolutely therefore that these decrees, as emanating from an ecumenical council, are infallibly true.  But I repudiate entirely—­since I am forced to do so by scientific fact (or, we will say, by what I am persuaded is scientific fact)—­the usual theological interpretation of the wording of the decrees.  Well, my judges take the other view.  They tell me that I am wrong in my second point, and therefore wrong also in my first.  They tell me that the decrees do categorically cover the class of cure I have dealt with; that such cures have been pronounced by the Church therefore to be evidently supernatural; and that therefore I am heretical in both my points.  On my side, I refuse to submit, maintaining that I am differing, not from the Catholic Church as she really is, (which would be heretical), but from the Catholic Church as interpreted by these theologians.  I know it’s rash of me to set myself against a practically universal and received interpretation;

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Dawn of All from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.