est was systematic, vigorous, and long
sustained. A dozen times (it was at those moments when glimpses of the
light, sylphlike form of Inez flitted like some fairy being past the
scene of their conferences) the good father fancied he was on the eve of
a glorious triumph over infidelity; but all his hopes were frustrated
by some unlooked-for opposition, on the part of the subject of his pious
labours. So long as the assault on his faith was distant and feeble,
Middleton, who was no great proficient in polemics, submitted to its
effects with the patience and humility of a martyr; but the moment the
good father, who felt such concern in his future happiness, was tempted
to improve his vantage ground by calling in the aid of some of the
peculiar subtilties of his own creed, the young man was too good a
soldier not to make head against the hot attack. He came to the contest,
it is true, with no weapons more formidable than common sense, and some
little knowledge of the habits of his country as contrasted with that
of his adversary; but with these homebred implements he never failed
to repulse the father with something of the power with which a nervous
cudgel player would deal with a skilful master of the rapier, setting at
nought his passados by the direct and unanswerable arguments of a broken
head and a shivered weapon.

Before the controversy was terminated, an inroad of Protestants had come
to aid the soldier. The reckless freedom of such among them, as thought
only of this life, and the consistent and tempered piety of others,
caused the honest priest to look about him in concern. The influence of
example on one hand, and the contamination of too free an intercourse on
the other, began to manifest themselves, even in that portion of his own
flock, which he had supposed to be too thoroughly folded in spiritual
government ever to stray. It was time to turn his thoughts from the
offensive, and to prepare his followers to resist the lawless deluge
of opinion, which threatened to break down the barriers of their faith.
Like a wise commander, who finds he has occupied too much ground for the
amount of his force, he began to curtail his outworks. The relics were
concealed from profane eyes; his people were admonished not to speak of
miracles before a race that not only denied their existence, but who
had even the desperate hardihood to challenge their proofs; and even
the Bible itself was prohibited, with terrible denunciations