The
Benedictine drew back, startled, his face aflame.
"And we shall not enthrone Christ within us," said Giovanni, much moved,
and pleased with the mystic breath he seemed to feel passing over the
assembly, "If we do not purify our ideas of reform through love; if,
when the time comes to operate, we do not first purify our hands and
our instruments. This indignation, this wrath of which you, Don Paolo,
speak, is really a powerful snare which the evil one uses against
us; powerful precisely because it bears the semblance of virtue and
sometimes, as is the case with the saints really has the substance of
virtue. In us it is nearly always pure malevolence, because we do not
know how to love. The prayer I love best, after the _Pater Noster_, is
the prayer of Unity, which unites us all in the spirit of Christ, when
He prays thus to the Father: '_Ut et ipsi in nobis unum sint._' The
desire and hope are always strong within us of a union in God with those
of our brothers whose beliefs separate them from us. Therefore say now
whether you accept my proposal to found this association.
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