Holiness to let these virtues simplify and sustain our Church,—­and so raise it a burning and shining light of loving-kindness and universal tolerance,—­so shall it be the true city set on a hill which shall draw all men to its shelter!  But if unjust judgment, intolerance, cruelty and fanaticism, should again be allowed, as once before in history, to blot its fairness and blight its reputation, then there is not much time left to it,—­inasmuch as there is a force in the world to-day likely to prove too strong for many of us,—­a mighty combat for Truth, in which conflicting creeds will fight their questions out together with terrible passion and insistence, bringing many souls to grief and pitiful disaster.  You, Holy Father, can arrest all this by making the Church of Rome, Christian rather than Pagan—­by removing every touch of idolatry, every recollection of paid prayers, and by teaching a lofty, pure and practical faith such as our Redeemer desired for us, so that it may be a refuge in the storm, a haven wherein all the world shall find peace.  This is for you and for those who come after you to do,—­I, Felix Bonpre, shall not be here to see the change so wrought, for I shall have gone from hence to answer for my poor stewardship,—­God grant I may not be found altogether wanting in intention, though I may have been inadequate in deed!  And so with my earnest prayer for your health and long continuance of life I bid you farewell, asking you nothing for myself at all but a reasonable judgment,—­unprejudiced and calm and Christlike,—­which will in good time persuade you that it would be but a cruelty to carry out your indignation against me by depriving me of that diocese where all my people know and love me,—­ simply because I have befriended a child, and because having once befriended him I refuse to desert him.  But if your mind should remain absolutely fixed to carry out your intentions I can only bow my head to your will and submit to the stroke of destiny, feeling it to be my Master’s wish that I should suffer something for His sake, and knowing from His words that if I ’offend one of these little ones,’ such as this friendless boy, ’it were better for me that a millstone were hung about my neck and I myself drowned in the depths of the sea!’ Between the Church doctrine and Christ’s own gospel, I choose the gospel; between Rome’s discipline and Christ’s command I choose Christ’s command,—­and shall be content to be glad or sorrowful, fortunate or poor, as equally to live or die as my Master, and your Master, shall bid.  For we all are nothing but His creatures, bound to serve Him, and where we serve Him not there must be evil worse than death.

“So in all humbleness still awaiting a more reasonable decision at your hands, I am, Most Holy Father,

“Your faithful servant and brother in Christ,

“Felix Bonpre.”