Where then was the difficulty?
It was not as if Christian worship were not permitted, under the usual regulations.

Catholics could still go to mass.

And yet appalling things were threatened in Germany: not less than twelve thousand persons had already left for Rome; and it was rumoured that forty thousand would refuse this simple act of homage a few days hence.
It bewildered and angered her to think of it.
For herself the new worship was a crowning sign of the triumph of Humanity.

Her heart had yearned for some such thing as this--some public corporate profession of what all now believed.

She had so resented the dulness of folk who were content with action and never considered its springs.