Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/101

At last, after Lancelot had waited long in vain, came his cousin's answer to the letter which I gave in my second chapter.

'You are not fair to me, good cousin . . . . . but I have given up expecting fairness from Protestants. I do not say that the front and the back of my head have different makers, any more than that doves and vipers have . . . . . and yet I kill the viper when I meet him . . . . . and so do you . . . . . And yet, are we not taught that our animal nature is throughout equally viperous? . . . . . The Catholic Church, at least, so teaches. . . . . She believes in the corruption of human nature. She believes in the literal meaning of Scripture. She has no wish to paraphrase away St. Paul's awful words, that 'in his flesh dwelleth no good thing,' by the unscientific euphemisms of 'fallen nature' or 'corrupt humanity.' The boasted discovery of phrenologists, that thought, feeling, and passion reside in this material brain and nerves of ours, has ages ago been anticipated by her simple faith in the letter of Scripture; a faith which puts to shame the irreverent vagueness and fantastic private