simply to those who would hear Him under the arching sky,--in the
open air! He prophesied the fall of temples; 'In this place,' He
said, 'is One greater than the temple.' [Footnote: Matt. xii. v. 6.]
He sought to destroy long built-up hypocrisies. 'My house is called
the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Thieves,
not only of gold, but of honour!--thieves of the very Gospel, which
has been tampered with and twisted to suit the times, the conditions
and opinions of varying phases of priestcraft. Who that has read,
and thought, and travelled and studied the manuscripts hidden away
in the old monasteries of Armenia and Syria, believes that the
Saviour of the world ever condescended to 'pun' on the word Petrus,
and say, 'On this Rock (or stone) I will build my Church,' when He
already knew that He had to deal with a coward who would soon deny
Him?"

"Enough! I will hear no further!" cried Moretti, turning livid with
fury--"Cardinal Bonpre, I appeal to you . . ."

But Cyrillon went on unheedingly,--

"Beware of that symbol of your Church, Monsignor! It is a very
strange one! It seems about to be expanded into a reality of
dreadful earnest! 'I know not the man,' said Peter. Does not the
glittering of the world's wealth piled into the Vatican,--useless
wealth lying idle in the midst of hideous beggary and starvation,--
proclaim with no uncertain voice, 'I KNOW NOT THE MAN'? The Man of
sorrows,--the Man of tender and pitying heart,--the Man who could
not send the multitude away without bread, and compassed a miracle
to give it to them,--the Man who wept for a friend's death,--who
took little children in His arms and blessed them,--who pardoned the