“Oh, but I mean a Roman Catholic priest,” said Minnie.

“A Roman Catholic priest!  Me!  Why, what a question!  Me! a Roman Catholic!  Why, in our parts folks call me the Protestant Champion.”

“Oh, and so you’re only a ’Protestant, after all,” said Minnie, in a disappointed tone.

“Only a Protestant!” repeated Tozer, severely—­“only a Protestant.  Why, ain’t you one yourself?”

“Oh yes; but I hoped you were the other priest, you know.  I did so want to have a Roman Catholic priest this time.”

Tozer was silent.  It struck him that this young lady was in danger.  Her wish for a Roman Catholic priest boded no good.  She had just come from Rome.  No doubt she had been tampered with.  Some Jesuits had caught her, and had tried to proselytize her.  His soul swelled with indignation at the thought.

“Oh dear!” said Minnie again.

“What’s the matter?” asked Tozer, in a sympathizing voice.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What for?”

“Why, that you saved my life, you know.”

“Sorry? sorry? that I saved your life?” repeated Tozer, in amazement.

“Oh, well, you know, I did so want to be saved by a Roman Catholic priest, you know.”

“To be saved by a Roman Catholic priest!” repeated Tozer, pondering these words in his mind as he slowly pronounced them.  He could make nothing of them at first, but finally concluded that they concealed some half-suggested tendency to Rome.

“I don’t like this—­I don’t like this,” he said, solemnly.

“What don’t you like?”

“It’s dangerous.  It looks bad,” said Tozer, with increased solemnity.

“What’s dangerous?  You look so solemn that you really make me feel quite nervous.  What’s dangerous?”

“Why, your words.  I see in you, I think, a kind of leaning toward Rome.”

“It isn’t Rome,” said Minnie.  “I don’t lean to Rome.  I only lean a little toward a Roman Catholic priest.”

“Worse and worse,” said Tozer.  “Dear! dear! dear! worse and worse.  This beats all.  Young woman, beware!  But perhaps I don’t understand you.  You surely don’t mean that your affections are engaged to any Roman Catholic priest.  You can’t mean that.  Why, they can’t marry.”

“But that’s just what I like them so for,” said Minnie.  “I like people that don’t marry; I hate people that want to marry.”

Tozer turned this over in his mind, but could make nothing of it.  At length he thought he saw in this an additional proof that she had been tampered with by Jesuits at Rome.  He thought he saw in this a statement of her belief in the Roman Catholic doctrine of celibacy.

He shook his head more solemnly than ever.  “It’s not Gospel,” said he.  “It’s mere human tradition.  Why, for centuries there was a married priesthood even in the Latin Church.  Dunstan’s chief measures consisted in a fierce war on the married clergy.  So did Hildebrand’s—­Gregory the Seventh, you know.  The Church at Milan, sustained by the doctrines of the great Ambrose, always preferred a married clergy.  The worst measures of Hildebrand were against these good pastors and their wives.  And in the Eastern Church they have always had it.”