t for the swords
and books Harry might almost think the Father was an imagination of his
mind--and for two letters which had come to him, one from abroad, full
of advice and affection, another soon after he had been confirmed by the
Bishop of Hexton, in which Father Holt deplored his falling away. But
Harry Esmond felt so confident now of his being in the right, and of his
own powers as a casuist, that he thought he was able to face the Father
himself in argument, and possibly convert him.

To work upon the faith of her young pupil, Esmond's kind mistress sent
to the library of her father the Dean, who had been distinguished in the
disputes of the late king's reign; and, an old soldier now, had hung
up his weapons of controversy. These he took down from his shelves
willingly for young Esmond, whom he benefited by his own personal advice
and instruction. It did not require much persuasion to induce the boy
to worship with his beloved mistress. And the good old nonjuring Dean
flattered himself with a conversion which, in truth, was owing to a much
gentler and fairer persuader.

Under her ladyship's kind eyes (my lord's being sealed in sleep pretty
generally), Esmond read many volumes of the works of the famous British
Divines of the last age, and was familiar with Wake and Sherlock, with
Stillingfleet and Patrick. His mistress never tired to listen or to
read, to pursue the texts with fond comments, to urge those points which
her fancy dwelt on most, or her reason deemed most important. Since the
death of her father the Dean, this lady hath admitted a certain latitude
of theological reading which her orthodox father would never have
allowed; his favorite writers appealing more to reason and antiquity
than to the passions or imaginations of their readers, so that the works
of Bishop Taylor, nay, those of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Law, have in reality
found more favor with my Lady Castlewood than the severer volumes of our
great English schoolmen.

In later life, at the University, Esmond reopened the controversy, and
pursued it in a very different manner, when his patrons had determined
for him that he was to embrace the ecclesiastical life. But though his
mistress's heart was in this calling, his own never was much. After that
first fervor of simple devotion, which his beloved Jesuit priest had
inspired in him, speculative theology took but little hold upon the
young man's mind. When his early credulity was disturbed, and his