" So he pursues the
list of devotees; her son will tell her that Caesar summarized his
conquests in this country by saying Veni, Vidi, Vici; but to her it
is given to say, Veni, Videbar, Vici.
On two subjects, theology and politics, Madame Novikoff was, as we
have seen, passionately in earnest. Himself at once an amateur
casuist and a consistent Nothingarian, whose dictum was that
"Important if true" should be written over the doors of churches,
he followed her religious arguments much as Lord Steyne listened to
the contests between Father Mole and the Reverend Mr. Trail. He
expresses his surprise in all seriousness that the Pharisees, a
thoughtful and cultured set of men, who alone among the Jews
believed in a future state, should have been the very men to whom
our Saviour was habitually antagonistic. He refers more lightly
and frequently to "those charming talks of ours about our
Churches"; he thinks they both know how to effleurer the surface of
theology without getting drowned in it. Of existing Churches he
preferred the English, as "the most harmless going"; disliked the
Latin Church, especially when intriguing in the East, as
persecuting and as schismatic, and therefore as no Church at all.
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