ncluded 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."

Of course all this was quite beyond Minnie; so she gave a little sigh,
and said nothing.

"Now as to Rome," resumed Tozer. "Have you ever given a careful study
to the Apocalypse--not a hasty reading, as people generally do, but a
serious, earnest, and careful examination?"

"I'm sure I haven't any idea what in the world you're talking about,"
said Minnie. "I _wish_ you wouldn't talk so. I don't understand one
single word of what you say."

Tozer started and stared at this. It was a depth of ignorance that
transcended that of the other young lady with whom he had conversed.
But he attributed it all to "Roman" influences. They dreaded the
Apocalypse, and had not allowed either of these young ladies to become
acquainted