irreverent innuendo. You are now suffering under great excitement and irritation, which may help those latent seeds of heresy to spring up. Believe a man of my experience; call upon your affectionate friend Bishop Mac N.; he will show you clearly how guilty you have been in fixing your eyes on the betrothed of the Lord. Do not indulge, I strongly advise you, in doubts concerning points (as you call them) of discipline, but which are ultimately connected with the very existence of Catholic Unity. Remember what I am about to say. The Church is indebted to you for the service which your reason has rendered it. But dismiss that treacherous ally as soon as possible, else the same hand that led you to the feet of the Papal throne, will finally tear you away from it."

Father Sohan left me without giving me time for any further reply. In vain did I attempt to see Mrs. Cusiack. All the servants brought me for answer an earnest request not to insist upon an interview. To see her daughter, was still a more hopeless attempt.

Distracted by the most violent feelings, and hoping, though very faintly, that the mildness and liberality of Bishop Mac N. would not only soothe me, but, perhaps, assist me in placing Mrs. Cusiack and her daughter out of the tyrannical sway of Father Sohan, I lost no time before I called on that venerable friend of my father.

He received me with his accustomed kindness. The cause of my distress seemed, indeed, already known to him. Upon my stating what had happened, he entreated me to controul my excited feelings. He lamented my rashness in continuing near so charming a person as Miss Cusiack, knowing, as I did, that she was devoted to the cloister. No change, he assured me, could take place in her resolution.

My despair was such that without any regard to the years and station of my excellent friend, I threatened the priesthood with a work against monachism and celibacy. I told the Bishop that, though allured by the expected applause of the clergy, I had picked out the most favourable

passages from the Fathers, I was aware (and his lordship might remember) how uncertain those writers are in their views and assertions. I could (I assured him) find materials enough to prove that the Catholic hierarchy was wrong in keeping up institutions which, at all times, were productive of great evils, and which in the present state of the world, and of the Church itself, began to appear out of all harmony and keeping.

The mild prelate did not rebuke me. He pressed me to stay with him a few days. To this I consented. During that visit my orthodox spirit revived, and with it the notion of taking orders, and devoting myself to the Church like my beloved Rose. Both feelings were assiduously and successfully encouraged by the good bishop. But most of all did my Right Rev. Friend approve the intention which I conceived at this time of visiting Rome. My wish now was to prepare myself for orders under the shadow of the Vatican, and by approaching the centre of the Catholic unity, to prevent those bold sallies of reason which now and then disturbed my peace and my faith.

CHAPTER II.

Preparatory visit to London.-Decline of Theological zeal.Arrival of a Manuscript.—Manuscript transcribed: its contents. -The one argument of the Traveller fairly stated.Not even the truth of the peculiar doctrines of Rome could prove her claims. Logical value of the Traveller's argument illustrated. True notion of Protestantism.-Unity of Protestantism.-Means by which the unity of orthodoxy was established, and ancient Protestantism suppressed.—The Infallible Church not known to the writers of the New Testament.-An infallible judge if not clearly defined and appointed, totally useless.-Rights of private judgment.

ANXIOUS for some relief to my agitated feelings, I went to London expecting to find there some agreeable, or, at all events, convenient companion for the whole or part of my journey. Both before my leaving Ireland, and while I remained in London, I wrote several letters to Mrs. Cusiack, entreating her to send me an answer, and inform me of the state of her daughter, whose health was fast declining when Father Sohan (to his shame, and perhaps to mine too) obtained my dismission from the house. But all

efforts were fruitless.

The Cusiacks seemed to

have ceased to exist, at least for me.

As I had many friends in London, and almost every hour enlarged my acquaintance, scarcely a day passed without an invitation to dinner, and perhaps two or three to evening parties. To a young man who has cultivated his mind, and who feels that he can contribute a respectable portion of mental entertainment, there is something extremely interesting in London society. I was consequently in no great haste to get on to the metropolis of Catholicism. The Protestant Babylon was indeed too alluring, and, though I continued a staunch Catholic, I. do not know by what influence my theological zeal was gradually falling to the freezing point. To say the truth, I had not been a month in London before I grew rather shy of appearing in the character of Dr. Doyle's Traveller,* which some provoking wag fixed upon me. As the familiarity of my intercourse with some bro

* This was an allusion to the praises I bestowed in my former work on that most dexterous controversialist.