He had been obliged to report half-a-dozen more significant secessions, and hardly a conversion of any kind.

There was no doubt at all that the tide was setting steadily against the Church.

The mad act in Trafalgar Square, too, had done incalculable harm last week: men were saying more than ever, and the papers storming, that the Church's reliance on the supernatural was belied by every one of her public acts.

"Scratch a Catholic and find an assassin" had been the text of a leading article in the _New People_, and Percy himself was dismayed at the folly of the attempt.

It was true that the Archbishop had formally repudiated both the act and the motive from the Cathedral pulpit, but that too had only served as an opportunity hastily taken up by the principal papers, to recall the continual policy of the Church to avail herself of violence while she repudiated the violent.