46

HOW THE VICAR DEALT WITH POPERY AT HOME.

"What, in the name of Heaven, do you mean, father?"

"I don't think Heaven has anything to do with it. I mean, she never enters these doors again-I mean, I disown her henceforth."

"You can't mean what you say; but if you did, I certainly am not going to fling over my sister because she prefers the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury."

"Arthur, I would not advise you to oppose me in these matters. I expect you to obey my orders, and if Anna joins that Foreign Church, she shall be made to feel she loses her home."

The Vicar rang the bell, a servant came in.

"Come in to prayers."

Arthur looked at his father with blank astonishment, and walked out of the room.

"Is religion all a lie ?-my own father-a clergyman-his daughter! Eugh, I shall go to bed; this is too horrid."

CHAPTER V.

WISDOM AND HYPOCRISY.

THE Doctor reported Mrs. Macdonald better the next morning, and expressed great hopes that nothing serious would result from the fall and the general shock to her nervous system. Arthur had had quite enough of home, and after breakfast told his father he thought he should go to Ramsgate and spend a few days with Mrs. Lewis, his aunt, before returning

to town.

"Arthur, I hope you won't go: you will see the Lumleys and Anna, and they will try and twiddle you round to their views; and if you join the Church of Rome, I shall have neither son nor daughter."

“Well, father, I really am not quite a baby, and not half so near Rome as you High Church people; my views are more like Mr. Rashleigh's, he seems to make things fit in all round.”

"My boy, I don't want to drive you, I hate the thoughts of your going to Ramsgate, but I have been thinking over it last night, for I fancied you would

propose it, and if you insist on it, why go, but don't break your father's heart by deserting your Church. I am getting on in years and your sister's secession has shortened my life by many a day."

Arthur hated scenes and felt for his father, while not by any means sympathising with his views of the question, so he assured him that he would infinitely rather his sister should not have turned Papist, and he would say what he could to prevent it if it was not

too late.

A few hours more saw him in the train on his road to Ramsgate.

Our readers will perhaps wonder at the Vicar quietly consenting to his joining his sister, but we must let them look at the matter from Mr. Macdonald's point of view. He knew he could not prevent their meeting elsewhere, especially when she was married, and so thought it would be preferable their doing so at his sister's house, where he could exert his influence by begging Mrs. Lewis to prevent controversy, and to keep him from spending all his time with the Lumleys; when married and engaged with her husband's affairs, he trusted Anna would have no time or wish to influence him.

Mrs. Lewis cordially welcomed her nephew, and was only too glad to see him, as poor Anna had been quite upset by her father's letter, even although she had expected something very vicious. Poor girl! she

was better off than many who have had no kind friends to receive them, no husband to welcome them,-hard is the lot of many an Englishman who thinks it his duty to become a Catholic.

"Arthur, Arthur, I have had such a blowing up about this naughty girl; it's a good thing I am pretty stolid, or I should have been quite upset. The little wretch can't be content with marriage, but wants to become a Catholic. I tell her a Creed which is good enough for all her people might satisfy her, but she won't believe me."

"You are a dear old thing, Auntie, and it's so good of you letting me go my own way without scolding."

Anna ran upstairs to see that her brother's things were taken into his room and all comfortable for him, leaving Arthur and his aunt in the drawing-room He talked over the Vicarage scene with her, and ended by asking if she could not have prevented her niece going to the Catholic Church, or have argued her round to Church of England views.

"My dear Arthur, I will tell you a short anecdote, which will show you at once why I left her free to go her own way. In 1737, a child made his first appearance in this world at Putney. In due course the child became a young man and went to Oxford; while still an undergraduate, he fell across certain Roman Catholic books, and especially studied two works by

the celebrated Bossuet. The result was that he became a Roman Catholic. He wrote a long and able controversial letter to his father, telling him how he had come to disbelieve in Protestantism, and that he had acted in accordance with his convictions in becoming a Catholic. His father packed him at once off to Switzerland and placed him under the charge of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister. He was treated as a boy instead of a young man, his allowance was docked to the most narrow limit, and, to quote his own words, 'I was again degraded to the dependence of a school-boy.' The result was that his father's plan succeeded; he returned to Protestantism and shortly afterwards became an infidel, and has probably done nearly as much harm to religion in England as Voltaire in France."

"Who do you mean, aunt ?"

"Gibbon, my love, the historian, the honest Catholic -the tyranny-made Protestant-the final Infidel. Wisdom does not advise me to follow in the steps of le père Gibbon."

"I am very glad you have told me this; I was thinking of trying to see if I could not change her mind, but besides being rather too late in the day it would be, as you have shown, unwise."

"I don't know what your controversial powers may be, but Anna is not ignorant of the strong points of her Creed, and I doubt your doing more than maintain