He had accepted by now the theory that he had had a lapse of memory, and that so far as his intellect was concerned, he was practically a man of a century ago, owing to the history he had happened to be reading shortly before his collapse; and he talked therefore from that standpoint.
He produced, that is to say, with astonishing fluency all those arguments that were common in the mouths of the more serious anti-clericals of the beginning of the century--the increase of Religious Orders, the domineering tendency of all ecclesiastics in the enjoyment of temporal power, the impossibility of combating supernatural arguments, the hostility of the Church to education--down even to the celibacy of the clergy.

He paused for breath as they turned out of the great gateway.
Father Jervis laughed aloud and patted him on the arm.
"My dear Monsignor, I can't compete with you.

You're too eloquent.

Of course, I remember from reading history that those things used to be said, and I suppose Socialists say them now.
But, you know, no educated man ever dreams of such arguments; nor indeed do the uneducated! It's the half-educated, as usual, who's the enemy.

He always is.