in a much-thumbed volume which he
was reading by the pale light of the single candle.

"Is it thus that you deceive your poor parents?" the fond father
began, in a tone of mock severity.

The startled lad stifled a cry and hastily thrust the book beneath his
pillow. The father's interest now became genuine. Leaning over the
terrified boy he drew forth the volume.

"Voltaire!"

The doting father stood petrified. Voltaire, _Antichrist_, Archfiend
of impiety--and in the hands of his beloved son!

Sleep fled the little household that night. In his father's arms,
while the distressed mother hung over them, the boy sobbed out his
confession. He had not intended to deceive. He had picked up this book
in the stall without knowing its nature. He had become so interested
in what it said about the Virgin Mary that he forgot all else. The
shopkeeper had found him reading it, and had laughed and winked at his
clerk when he bade the boy take it home for the night. The book had
fascinated him. He himself--did not his father know?--had so often
asked how the Virgin could be the mother of God, and why men prayed to
her. Yes, he knew it mocked their faith--and the sacred Scriptures. He
knew, too, that his father would not approve of it. That was why he
had tried to hide it beneath his pillow. He had been wicked,
desperately wicked, to deceive his dear parents--But the book--It made
him forget--It said so many things that seemed to be true--And--and--

"Oh, _padre mio_, forgive me, forgive me! I want to know the truth
about God and the world!" The delicate frame of the young lad shook in
paroxysms of grief.

Alas! it was but the anguished soul-cry which has echoed through the
halls of space since time began. What a mockery to meet it with empty
creed and human dogma! Alas! what a crime against innocence to stifle
the honest questionings of a budding mind with the musty cloak of
undemonstrable beliefs.

"But, my son, have I not often told you? The Holy Church gives us the
truth," replied the father, frightened by the storm which raged within
the childish soul, yet more alarmed at the turn which the mind of his
cherished son was apparently taking--his only son, dedicated to the
service of God from the cradle, and in whom the shattered hopes of
this once proud family were now centered.

"But this book laughs at us because we pray to a woman!" sobbed the
boy.

"True. But does not its author need the prayers of so pure a woman as