For everlastingly was it the truth, that none could gainsay nor resist, that in relation to _this_ matter, at any rate, it was the lofty privilege of Edward Oldcorne——indeed a man, if ever there were such, “elect and precious”——to have been made “a white soul:” to have been made a soul like unto “a star that dwelt apart.” _Res ipsa loquitur._ Yea, the words of Edward Oldcorne speak for themselves. And from those words evident is it that it was the kingly prerogative of this disciplined, self-repressed, humblest of men, _to know the truth as to the once atrocious plan: to know the truth and to be free_. For his language implies, and, his mind and his character being what they were, his language is intelligible on none other supposal than this: That at the very moment when his tongue gave utterance to this now famous flanking, evasive answer to his inquirer, _he, even he, had possession of a power, a knowledge, a living consciousness, that he had been exalted to be the chosen agent of that Supreme Power of the Universe_, to Whom by infinite right, Vengeance belongs: _the chosen agent whereby the aforetime, but then no longer, stupendous Gunpowder Treason Plot had been, to all eternity, overthrown, frustrated, and brought to nought_.[167] CHAPTER LXVII. Hence may we say, of a surety, has it been proved that Edward Oldcorne, Priest and Jesuit, used words which imply that, as a fact, he viewed the Plot _ante factum_, before the fact, and in the abstract merely. That, being a man as good as he was clever, and as clever as he was good, he must have had his warranting reasons, his justifying reasons, his vindicating reasons for so doing, when such a course of action was obviously likely to be attended with danger from misinterpretation from both the fool and the knave; from both the man lacking thought and from the man lacking heart. That such warranting reasons, such justifying reasons, such vindicating reasons would be found in the fact that Oldcorne knew the Plot was no longer a plot, but a scheme emptied and defecated of all evil, all murderous, all criminous, all sacrilegious quality. Nay, that it was a scheme sublimated and transfigured by his (Oldcorne’s) own superabounding merit and virtue in relation to the once diabolical, but then repented of, prodigious plan.