But the
good Bishop, liberal as he was in one direction, yet failed to reach the
full width of colonial sentiment in that respect, when he refused to
reciprocate the courtesy visit of his Roman Catholic brother. He is
credited with having given his reason, namely, that, in his view, the
Roman Church belonged to "the synagogue of Satan"--surely a very
venturesome assertion of so vast a part of Christianity and of the power
and civilization of the world. We might say at times of bishops, as is
so often said of judges, that when they have to make any unusual or
unexpected decision they had best not give the reasons. I witnessed a
very different sense of duty, and one to which I must confess a
preference when we were at Lugano, an inland town of Teneriffe, situated
a few miles from Santa Cruz, where our good "Coptic" halted for six
hours to replenish her coal, thus permitting her passengers a shore
excursion. A polite elderly gentleman, apparently the sole occupant of
the Lugano hotel, whose decidedly clerical aspect, together with that
simple white neckband which Catholics claim as solely their own, made us
at once set him down as Roman, invited us to look through the inevitable
cathedral, the only sight of the place.
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