“The stork would not thus have shunned natives.  He must have found out that we are foreigners and heretics” said Mrs. Shortridge.

“It is this arch-heretic, Moodie, that he shuns,” said Lady Mabel.  “His presence would drive away a whole congregation of storks, who are almost as good churchmen as the monks themselves.”

“Perhaps quite as good,” said Moodie.  “My arch-heresy consists in protesting now and always against idolatrous Rome.  Some here are not quite as good Protestants as I am.”

“I never called myself a Protestant,” said L’Isle.

“Do you not, sir?” exclaimed Moodie.  “Pray what are you then?”

“I never called myself a Protestant in defining my faith.”

“And why not, sir,” asked Moodie, adding in an under tone.  “Now he will show the cloven foot.”

“Because mine is a positive creed, not to be expressed by negation.  In defining it, I can admit no term not expressing some essential point.  I would not mistake the accident for the essence.  That God has given his revealed word to man, is an essential point in my belief.  That Rome has misconstrued that word, may be true, but comes not within the scope of my creed.  I believe that Christ by his Apostles founded a church to ramify through the world, like the fruitful vine running over the wall.  Some branches may have rotted off, some may bear degenerate fruit, some in unpruned luxuriance may bring forth nothing but leaves.  Be it so.  My belief is that the branch I cleave to retains its vital vigor and produces life-sustaining fruit.”

“But how does this prevent your protesting against Rome?” objected Moodie.

“It prevents my making that protest any part of the definition of my faith.  Names are things, and he who is perpetually dubbing himself a Protestant, ends by making it the first article of his creed, that Rome errs, and his active religion becomes opposition to Rome.  Now I find Voltaire quite as good a Protestant as you are.”

“I can say nothing to that,” answered Moodie, “never having met with that gentleman.”

L’Isle smiled for a moment, but went on earnestly to say:  “We believe that Christ not only gave us a father, but founded a church, and we will not let go our hold upon it, as some sects and nations have done, out of mere opposition to Rome.  Our forefathers by God’s providence, set earnestly to work reforming it where corrupted, repairing it when dilapidated, but did not pull it down, in the presumptuous hope of building up another.  They purified the temple, but did not destroy it.  They removed the idols, but did plough up and sow with salt the consecrated spot, because it had been defiled.”

“I see” said Moodie warmly, “that you aim your anathema at the Kirks among other Christian bodies.”

“Without anathematizing any one,” L’Isle answered, “we take comfort to ourselves, in the conviction that our church is a continuous branch of that which the Apostles founded in Christ, and that it might have been in essentials what it now is, were its history as closely connected with the Greek church, as it is with that of Rome, or had it ever stood unconnected with either of them.  Never having been rebuilt from its foundation, it has lost its apostolic character.”