up a crisis, leaped immediately into importance, and seems certain to
enjoy, for a long time to come, the prestige that crowns such works.
Putting it on the _Index_ can only add to its power.


VI

But readers who imagine that this aspect measures the significance of
_The Saint_ have read the surface only. The probability of restoring
friendly relations between Church and State is a matter of concern to
everybody in Italy; but of even greater concern are the implications
which issue from Signor Fogazzaro's thought. He is an evolutionist; he
respects the higher criticism; he knows that religions, like states and
secular institutions, have their birth and growth and inevitable decay.
So Catholicism must take its course in the human circuit, and expect
sooner or later to pass away. This would be the natural deduction to
draw from the premise of evolution. Signor Fogazzaro, however, does not
draw it. He conceives that Catholicism contains a final deposit of truth
which can neither be superseded, wasted, nor destroyed.

"My friends," says Benedetto, "you say, 'We have reposed in the shade of
this tree but now its bark cracks and dries; the tree will die; let us
go in search of other shade.' The tree will not die. If you had ears,
you would hear the movement of the new bark forming, which will have its
period of life, will crack, will dry in its turn, because another bark
shall replace it. The tree does not die, the tree grows."

Through this parable, Signor Fogazzaro reveals his attitude, which it
appears, does not differ from that proposed by many Anglicans and other
Protestants towards their respective churches. Herein his Saint takes on