give up the Protestant religion; and, if you will, the examples of King James II. and his son, who gave up three crowns rather than relinquish the faith which they (wrongly) believed to be true. There is no help for it, I suppose, but that women brought up in the Roman Faith must needs abide in it, How much the more, then, that we, who belong to the Pure and Reformed branch of the Universal Church, should cling to it as the only hope of our souls! As for controversy, Mr. Hilyard once said well, There is nothing more excellent than religion; but to raise quarrels over it is to dishonour it. Why should that which is designed to make us happy in another world make us miserable in this? Wherefore it comes to this, that we shall never all be perfectly happy till we are all agreed upon the Thirty-nine Articles of the Faith.'

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When that happy event will happen none can predict—perhaps not till long after the present century—a third part of which is, while I write these words, already gone; perhaps not till the nineteenth century itself is drawing to a close, and the end of all things is approaching.

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Then I laid the case, but with feigned. names and false circumstances, before Mr. Hilyard. I inquired of him his opinion as to change of creed in general, whether there were no cases in which it would be allowed (always supposing that reason and conscience went the other way). Thus I put before him (as if the Prince was in my mind) the case of a sovereign whose conversion, real or pretended, would bring happiness to his country; or a godly minister whose obedience to the law would secure his services to his helpless parishioners; or a bishop who, by outward conforming, might keep moderate doctrines in his diocese; or a gentleman who, by professing himself of the Church of England, might obtain a commission of the Queen, and so rise to great honour; or a woman who, by acknowledging

faith in which her conscience forbade her to engage, might make her lover happy, and, perhaps in the event, lead him to her own Church.

There never, surely, was a man stronger in the cause of virtue than Mr. Hilyard. If there were more like him, the wickedness

of the age would long since have wholly vanished. As for the example of his private life, it becomes not a fellow-sinner to judge. If we may compare small with great, it cannot be denied that the King who wrote (by Divine guidance) the most perfect book of rules for the conduct of life, did by no means set a pattern of self-denial in his own practice. So with Mr. Hilyard.

I put forward my question with much confusion and many blushes, because I feared that Mr. Hilyard might guess the cause and secret purpose of my simulated cases. He answered not for some moments, looking earnestly into my face. Then he, too, changed colour, and gave his answer, walking about the room and in some agitation of manner which surprised me.

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As for the cases advanced,' he said, 'there are none to be for a moment considered, except the last. The King who sacrificed his conscience to his ambition laid open a way to greater evils. Heaven raised up in Henry IV. a champion for the Protestant Faith second only to that great and god-like man, Coligny. Had he adhered, the wars

might have continued and France might have been partitioned; but the Protestants. would have won their freedom. The duty of a minister is clearly indicated in the history and example of Mr. Gilpin, of Houghton-le-Spring, who persevered in his Protestant teaching throughout the reign of Bloody Mary, ever keeping ready a white shirt in which to present a comely appearance at the stake. Yet, being haled up to London, he broke his leg, which, causing him to lie in bed, saved his life, because Mary died, and good Queen Bess succeeded. As for a young gentleman of a Catholic family, we have,' he said, many instances around us of those who, for want of a profession, pass idle and ignoble lives, as if drinking and sport were the only objects for which man, a rational being, was created. But as for their consciences, you must please to excuse me. I doubt much whether the conscience of such a young gentleman would trouble him so much as his sense of honour; and once entered upon the roll of a regiment, there would be mighty little further question as to religion. The English armies,' he

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added, are Protestant to the backbone. That cannot be denied. Yet how far their lives and daily conversation are guided by their religion, and how far their practice is conversant with their profession, I am not prepared to say. If, therefore, Miss Dorothy, any of his honour's Catholic friends are minded to renounce the Pope, in order to bear a pike or carry the colours, encourage them by all means.'

There remains,' he went on to say, 'the last case.' Again he stopped, and again earnestly gazed upon my face. 'I am not, I confess, skilled in casuistry; nor can I advise as to the case. Yet, were it to arise, I would advise the woman to whom it occurs to take the matter seriously in hand, and if she have friends and relations in authority and high places, to lay the decision before them, as one which affects not her happiness only or the happiness of her lover, but also her conscience and her soul.' He said this very seriously, so that his words fell deeply into my heart.

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'I know,' he went on, that a beautiful can persuade a man who loves her

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