checked by the murmur, “O my child, how undisciplined! how impatient!” Truly, he must have found in me—­hot, eager, passionate in my determination to know, resolute not to profess belief while belief was absent—­nothing of the meek, chastened, submissive spirit with which he was wont to deal in penitents seeking his counsel as their spiritual guide.  In vain did he bid me pray as though I believed; in vain did he urge the duty of blind submission to the authority of the Church, of blind, unreasoning faith that questioned not.  I had not trodden the thorny path of doubt to come to the point from which I had started; I needed, and would have, solid grounds ere I believed.  He had no conception of the struggles of a sceptical spirit; he had evidently never felt the pangs of doubt; his own faith was solid as a rock, firm, satisfied, unshakable; he would as soon have committed suicide as have doubted of the infallibility of the “Universal Church.”

“It is not your duty to ascertain the truth,” he told me, sternly.  “It is your duty to accept and believe the truth as laid down by the Church.  At your peril you reject it.  The responsibility is not yours so long as you dutifully accept that which the Church has laid down for your acceptance.  Did not the Lord promise that the presence of the Spirit should be ever with His Church, to guide her into all truth?”

“But the fact of the promise and its value are just the very points on which I am doubtful,” I answered.

He shuddered.  “Pray, pray,” he said.  “Father, forgive her, for she knows not what she says.”

It was in vain that I urged on him the sincerity of my seeking, pointing out that I had everything to gain by following his directions, everything to lose by going my own way, but that it seemed to me untruthful to pretend to accept what was not really believed.

“Everything to lose?  Yes, indeed.  You will be lost for time and lost for eternity.”

“Lost or not,” I rejoined, “I must and will try to find out what is true, and I will not believe till I am sure.”

“You have no right to make terms with God,” he retorted, “as to what you will believe or what you will not believe.  You are full of intellectual pride.”

I sighed hopelessly.  Little feeling of pride was there in me just then, but only a despairful feeling that in this rigid, unyielding dogmatism there was no comprehension of my difficulties, no help for me in my strugglings.  I rose, and, thanking him for his courtesy, said that I would not waste his time further, that I must go home and face the difficulties, openly leaving the Church and taking the consequences.  Then for the first time his serenity was ruffled.

“I forbid you to speak of your disbelief,” he cried.  “I forbid you to lead into your own lost state the souls for whom Christ died.”

[Illustration:  THOMAS SCOTT.]