“Simply because I never find any touch of the true Spirit of Christ there—­and the whole tone of the place makes me feel distinctly un-Christian.  The nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine youths possibly would sympathise with me.  A church is a building more or less beautiful or ugly as the case may be, and in the building there is generally a man who reads prayers in a sing-song tone of voice, and perhaps another man who preaches without eloquence on some text which he utterly fails to see the true symbolical meaning of.  There are no Charles Kingsleys nowadays,—­if there were, I should call myself a ‘Kingsleyite’.  But as matters stand I am not moved by the church to feel religious.  I would rather sit quietly in the fields and hear the gentle leaves whispering their joys and thanksgivings above my head, than listen to a human creature who has not even the education to comprehend the simplest teachings of nature, daring to assert himself as a teacher of the Divine.  My own chief object in life has been and still is to speak on this and similar subjects to the people who are groping after lost Christianity.  They need helping, and I want to try in my way to help them.”

“Groping after lost Christianity!” echoed the Cardinal, “Those words are a terrible indictment, Mr. Leigh!”

“Yet in your own soul your Eminence admits it to be true,” returned Leigh quickly,—­“I can see the admission in your eyes,—­in the very expression of your face!  You feel in yourself that the true spirit of Christ is lacking in all the churches of the present day,—­that the sheep are straying for lack of the shepherd, and that the wolf is in the fold!  You know it,—­you feel it,—­you see it!”

Cardinal Bonpre’s head drooped.

“God help me and forgive me, I am afraid I do!” he said sorrowfully.  “I see the shadow of the storm before it draws nigh,—­I feel the terror of the earthquake before it shakes down the edifice!  No, the world is not with Christ to-day!—­and unhappily it is a fact that Christ’s ministers in recent years have done more to sever Him from Humanity than any other power could ever have succeeded in doing.  Not by action, but by inertia!—­dumbness—­lack of protest,—­lack of courage!  Only a few stray souls stand out firm and fair in the chaos,—­only a few!”

“’I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot,—­I would thou wert cold or hot!  So because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth!’” quoted Leigh, his eyes flashing and his voice trembling with repressed earnestness, “That is the trouble all through!  Apathy,—­dead, unproductive apathy and laissez-faire!—­Ah, I believe there are some of us living now who are destined to see strange and terrible things in this new century!”