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Fogazzaro, Antonio, 1842-1911

"The Saint"

Then you will hear Truth calling out in the night. You can
answer 'Begone'--and you will never meet her again. You can answer
'Enter'--and you will see her appear, veiled, and breathing sweetness
through her veil. You do not now know what you will answer, nor do I
know, nor does any one in the world. Prepare yourself, by good works, to
give the right answer. Whatever your errors may be there is religion in
your soul. God has given you much power in this world; use it to good
purpose. You who were born a Catholic say you are a Protestant.
Perhaps you do not know Catholicism well enough to understand that
Protestantism is being shattered upon the dead Christ, while Catholicism
evolves by virtue of the living Christ. But now I speak to the
statesman, not, indeed, to implore him to protect the Catholic Church,
which would be a misfortune, but to tell him that though the State may
not be either Catholic or Protestant, neither may it ignore God, and you
dare to ignore Him in more than one of your schools, in those you call
high, and this in the name of freedom of science, which you confound
with freedom of thought and of speech; for thought and speech are free
to deny God, but the negation of God neither partakes nor can partake of
the nature of science, and you are bound to teach science alone.


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