"Monsieur, you spoke of an encyclical on biblical studies."
Renan's voice was seductive; Leo made a gesture of impatience.
"It was a mistake," he said quickly. "At certain moments the heads of any organisation are liable to be driven into a false position by their extreme supporters. My policy was to let things take their course; to assimilate what we could of the new spirit, and let the rest die without noise. My condemnation of Americanism was unobtrusive, and I did not condemn the French Liberal priests who were busy with biblical exegesis, because I saw that attacks on dogma do not interest the mass of people; nine Catholics out of ten do not know what they believe in: and if your methods of criticism, Monsieur Renan, had not been advertised by so many fanatics, you would have been read almost entirely for the sake of your style. There is a little man in France now, a little man with the smile and features of Voltaire, whose criticism has rendered the work of all those tedious Germans, and your own, quite obsolete. Our good Ultramontanes wished to persecute him into popularity, and to advertise him by excommunication. They told me he was a heretic. Of course he was. All the Fathers of the Church were heretics. St Paul was a heretic. So was St Augustine. So was St Francis. So were Lamennais, Lacordaire, and Newman. But it is a pity that the world should know it. St Paul's heterodoxy laid the foundations of the Church. St Augustine's heterodoxy, that the sacred writings were not to be taken literally, built it up. St Francis's heterodoxy staved off the Reformation for three centuries. Lamennais and Lacordaire in France, Newman in England, infused new life into our veins. Let us point to the names of our sons and not to their works."
A subtle enjoyment illuminated Renan's face.
"Monsieur, you were always an enigma to me."
"It is simple," said Leo; "the impregnable rock upon which we build is simply the impregnable ignorance of the majority. Do you think that science can alter or influence the emotions of the plain man? It does not touch him. He prefers to accept blindly a creed which he does not understand in order that he may devote himself to the business and pleasures of life. He has no time to pause, to question, to criticise, to select. He aims at euthanasia. His doubts, such as he has, are almost entirely subconscious; and for the sake of his own peace of mind he will attempt to stifle them if they lift their heads. The number of men who can look on life, the whole of life, with a tranquil mind is extremely small; and even these have their moments of failure, weakness, and spiritual lassitude, moments in which life seems a hideous nightmare, in which the individual, grown morbidly conscious of his own being, sees it as no more than an infinitesimal point in the great waste of time and space, the great darkness of eternity, wherein all the worlds at present existing are no more than a shower of sparks.