It matters very little whether unconverted people join the Church of Rome or not; they are sure to be lost for ever if they die in their unconverted state:  for nothing avails for eternal salvation but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER 30

Secessions, 1856.

After mission which Mr. Aitken had held, people came out so decidedly, that the vicar and curate, who had all along kept aloof, doubting, fell back into a kind of revulsion, and began to read and lend Romish books.  Eventually, they themselves decided to join the Church of Rome.  Whether they were ever really converted or not, I cannot tell.  I thought and hoped they were, but they seldom stood out on the Lord’s side.  They certainly had light, and may have had some experience.  At any rate, they chose such a harlot as the Church of Rome for the object of their love, instead of Christ Himself.

I loved the curate.  He was the man who had the unopened letter in his desk,* of which he harboured such a dread.  Sad to say, he ended by falling away at last.  Poor man! he went over to Rome, and never held up his head any more.  Evidently disappointed, and ashamed to come back, he lingered on for some months, and then died.

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* See page 256.
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Not long after his secession, we accidentally met in a quiet lane, in another part of the county, where I was walking for meditation.  Perhaps he was led there for the same purpose.  Meeting so unexpectedly, there was no opportunity to evade one another.  I felt a trembling come over me at seeing him, and he was none the less moved.  We held each other’s hands in silence, till at last I said, “How are you?  I love you still.”

“I cannot stand it!” he said; and snatching his hand out of mine, he ran away.

I never saw him again, but mourned for him till he died.  I cannot help thinking that he is safe, and that he died in a faith more scriptural than that of the Church of Rome.

Why do men secede; and break their own hearts, and the hearts of those who love them?  Rome seems to cast a kind of spell upon the conscience, fascinating its victims much as the gaze of the serpent is said to hold a bird, till it falls into its power; or as a light attracts a moth, till it flies into it, to its own destruction.  Such seceders mourn and dread the step; pray about it, think and think, till they are bewildered and harassed; and then, in a fit of desperation, go off to some Romish priest to be received.  A man who had an honourable position, a work and responsibility, suddenly becomes a nonentity, barely welcomed, and certainly suspected.