“In part it is,” answered Dalaber, “for I have felt like a hypocrite and renegade all these days.  I love the church; I hold her doctrines; I trow that I would die for the truth which she teaches:  but I hold also that men should not be condemned for the reading and free discussion of the Word of God; and if those who did persuade me to submit to discipline and penance for disobedience believe that I repent me of holding and spreading that doctrine, then must I ever live with the sense of having been a traitor to the cause of my Lord and my God.”

“And you wish to tell me this?”

“Yes; that your Eminence may send me back to prison, or to the stake, if it be your will.”

The same slight smile played round the cardinal’s lips.  He looked once more at his papers.

“It is said here, Anthony Dalaber, that you have given up the study of divinity, and have taken up that of the law?”

“That is true,” he answered freely.  “I am not made for the priesthood; of that I am well assured.  I will seek to serve God in the lesser calling, and do my duty there to Him and to the brethren.”

“A laudable resolve,” answered the great man, “in which I wish you all success.  Listen to me for a brief moment, my son.  The words you have spoken here this day will not be used against yon.  I have followed your career.  I know your courage and steadfastness of spirit, as well as its weaknesses and vacillations.  I know how many godly youths are in like case with you—­halting between two opinions, torn asunder in the struggle to judge all these hard and difficult questions for themselves.  For you, and for all who yet love Holy Church, I have this piece of counsel to give.  Beware how you seek to tamper with the unity of the one body.  Beware how you sacrifice the greater for the lesser.  It is only a church at unity in herself that can convert the world; we have the Lord’s own word for that.  If you have read in any tongue His last charge on earth to His apostles, as recorded in the Gospel of St. John, you must see and recognize that.  The burden of that wonderful pastoral is, ‘That we all may be one:  that the world may believe.’  To rend the body is to destroy its unity.  To destroy its unity is to hinder the work of Christ upon earth.  Think and ponder that well, and pray for guidance, for patience, for the submissive will which would endure much rather than bring war amongst the members of the one body.  Our Lord Himself has warned those who are devout and sincere from the error of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.  Let the church minister the Word of God.  Let those who hunger for more ask of her.  She will not send them empty away.  Already those who style themselves reformers are quarrelling amongst themselves.  Soon they will be broken up into a thousand camps.  Unity will cease to reign in the church.  Confusion and hatred and even bloodshed will follow.

“Be advised, Anthony Dalaber.  Quit these hard and vexed questions for a while.  Take to the less perilous study of the law.  With age and experience you will learn your lesson.  And I will pray for a blessing upon you, my son, for in truth I believe that the Lord may have work for you to do in days to come; and if so, I trow you will not shrink from doing it.”