who has constituted himself high-priest of his Church--whom the pope
once called 'the Knight of the Truth and the Faith'--the king has at
the bottom of his heart no religion. He is a wavering reed, which
the wind turns this way to-day, and that way to-morrow. He knows not
his own will, and, coquetting with both parties, to-day he is a
heretic, in order to exhibit himself as a strong, unprejudiced,
enlightened man; to-morrow a Catholic, in order to show himself an
obedient and humble servant of God, who seeks and finds his
happiness only in love and piety. But for both confessions of faith
he possesses at heart a profound indifference; and had the pope at
that time placed no difficulties in his way, had he consented to his
divorce from Catharine, Henry would have always remained a very good
and active servant of the Catholic Church. But they were imprudent
enough to irritate him by contradiction; they stimulated his vanity
and pride to resistance; and so Henry became a church reformer, not
from conviction, but out of pure love of opposition. And that, my
child, you must never forget, for, by means of this lever, you may
very well convert him again to a devout, dutiful, and obedient
servant of our holy Church. He has renounced the pope, and usurped
the supremacy of the Church, but he cannot summon up courage to
carry out his work and throw himself wholly into the arms of the
Reformation. However much he has opposed the person of the pope,
still he has always remained devoted to the Church, although perhaps
he does not know it himself. He is no Catholic, and he hears mass;
he has broken up the monasteries, and yet forbids priests to marry;
he has the Lord's supper administered under both kinds, and believes
in the real transubstantiation of the wine into the Redeemer's holy
blood. He destroys the convents, and yet commands that vows of
chastity, spoken by man or woman, must be faithfully kept; and
lastly, auricular confession is still a necessary constituent of his