building. I said there was
nothing to prevent bad spirits coming in at that side.

I copied the Bishop's angry reply, plead my ignorance and that of
Protestants in general for all that seemed irreverent, and called upon
him for explanations. What did it all mean? What was the spiritual
significance of those externals? I ignored his evident anger; had no
reason to be other than personally respectful to him, yet my second
article irritated him more than the first.

I had stated that the men in the procession were the most
villainous-looking set I had ever seen; that every head and face save
those of the Bishops of Orleans and Pittsburg, were more or less stamped
by sensuality and low cunning. In Bishop O'Conner's reply, he said I had
gone to look for handsome men. I answered that I had, and that it was
right to do so. The Church, in her works of art, had labored to
represent Christ and his apostles as perfectly-formed men--men with
spiritual faces. She had never represented any of her saints as a
wine-bibber, a gross beef-eater, or a narrow-headed, crafty, cringing
creature. These living men could not be the rightful successors of those
whose statues and pictures adorned that cathedral. Archbishop Hughes, in
his sermon on that occasion, had argued that all the forms of the
church had a holy significance. What was that significance? Moreover, in
the days of John there were seven churches. Whatever had the Church of
Rome done with the other six owned on the Isle of Patmos by him who
stood in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks?

For two months every issue of the _Visiter_ copied and replied to one of
the Bishop's articles, but never could bring him to the point of
explaining any portion of that great mystery. But the discussion marked
me as the subject of a hatred I had not deemed possible, and I have
seldom, if ever, met a Catholic so obscure that he did not recognize my
name as that of an enemy. So bitter was the feeling, that when my only
baby came great fears were felt lest she should be abducted; but this I
knew never could be done with Bishop O'Conner's consent.

CHAPTER XXXII.

POLITICS AND PRINTERS.

When the Pittsburg National Convention, which formed the Free Democratic
party, had finished its labors, a committee waited on the _Visiter_, to
bespeak that support which had already been resolved upon, and soon
after a State Convention in Harrisburg indorsed it by formal resolution
as a party orga