Erastus returned no answer, as Herr Belier came in with Xylander who wished to greet Erastus. After a time they were joined by Felix, who within the last few days had looked less cheerful than usual. "Our friend would leave us," said the Huguenot. "He goes first to Innsbruck to visit Master Colins and then returns to Naples. In vain I have begged him to renounce papistry; he declares that he will not cut himself off from his people, and that art-loving Italy will never raise itself to our worship of God in Spirit and in Truth."
"You are right," said Erastus kindly. "We cannot make use of the Papal Church as it now is and the Italians cannot use our churches as they now are. It is sufficient for us to think out our thoughts and to act accordingly, the Italians wish them represented before them sensuously. Perhaps the time may come when this dissonance solves itself into a higher harmony, as Lydia once said, in which the white surplices and black gowns will be as much things of the past as are to-day Garizim und Moriah, or the disputes of the Levites and Samaritans, nevertheless I fear that the day is much further off than Lydia thinks. But we have indeed the promises of a time, when there will be no temple and no priest and I believe that the world will give a sigh of relief when the last Theologian has been buried." "I should myself like to be standing by that grave," said Xylander vivaciously. "I would place with this humanitarian all the implements with which he worked, his symbolical books, bishops' mitres, pitch torches, the pears of torture, and a bit of Sylvan's bloody shirt which was wickedly sent to me on the day after the poor man's death. They would trumpet in the next world that Kalchas and Teiresias, Augurs and Haruspices were soft-hearted fellows in comparison with those who came after them. When I consider the amount of blood that has been shed since the days of Constantine to the present time, I wish that a Church had never existed!" "No," replied Erastus, "it was not my meaning that we should overthrow the Church because the priests do not satisfy us. That would be like tearing down a house, because the owner was not popular. We must only place it in other hands, rule it in a different manner, and for this reform, which is so necessary, I know of no better fundamental doctrine than that, which Magister Paul intends to preach for the future, that the Spirit exists only outwardly in one way, and that is in the Life."