My hero thought over these things, and remembered many a _ruse_ on the
part of Christina and Charlotte, and many a detail of the struggle which
I cannot further interrupt my story to refer to, and he remembered his
father's favourite retort that it could only end in Rome. When he was a
boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now as he thought of
another alternative clear enough to himself, but so horrible that it had
not even occurred to Theobald--I mean the toppling over of the whole
system. At that time he welcomed the hope that the absurdities and
unrealities of the Church would end in her downfall. Since then he has
come to think very differently, not as believing in the cow jumping over
the moon more than he used to, or more, probably, than nine-tenths of the
clergy themselves--who know as well as he does that their outward and
visible symbols are out of date--but because he knows the baffling
complexity of the problem when it comes to deciding what is actually to
be done. Also, now that he has seen them more closely, he knows better
the nature of those wolves in sheep's clothing, who are thirsting for the
blood of their victim, and exulting so clamorously over its anticipated
early fall into their clutches.
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