This corrective is
found in the exalted idealism which characterizes the great saints and
reformers, such as Augustine, or Francis, or Teresa, or Ignatius--souls
at once mystical and energetically practical to the highest degree. It
is something of this temper which is parodied in Alan Helbeck. But the
Church's mission is not merely to those rare souls whose sympathy with
her own mind and will is intelligent and spontaneous; but at least as
much to the multitudes who have to be guided more or less blindly by
obedience to tradition and authority, or else let wander as sheep having
no shepherd. These considerations explain why _One Poor Scruple_ seems
to us so far truer a presentment of Catholic life than _Helbeck of
Bannisdale_--the difference lying in the incommunicable advantage which
an insider possesses over an outsider in understanding the spirit and
principles by which the members of any social body are governed. Of all
religions, Catholicism which represents the accumulated results of two
thousand years' worldwide experience of human nature applied to the
principles of the Gospel, is least likely to be comprehended by an
outsider, however observant and fair-minded.
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