tle, and there a
Little'. My Father's ambition would not submit to anything
suggested by such a title as that, and he committed, from his own
point of view, a fatal mistake when he sought to build spires and
battlements without having been at the pains to settle a
foundation beneath them.

We were not always reading the 'Epistle to the Hebrews', however;
not always was my flesh being made to creep by having it insisted
upon that 'almost all things are by the Law purged with blood,
and without blood is no remission of sin'. In our lighter moods,
we turned to the 'Book of Revelation', and chased the phantom of
Popery through its fuliginous pages. My Father, I think, missed
my Mother's company almost more acutely in his researches into
prophecy than in anything else. This had been their unceasing
recreation, and no third person could possibly follow the curious
path which they had hewn for themselves through this jungle of
symbols. But, more and more, my Father persuaded himself that I,
too, was initiated, and by degrees I was made to share in all
his speculations and interpretations.

Hand in hand we investigated the number of the Beast, which
number is six hundred three score and six. Hand in hand we
inspected the nations, to see whether they had the mark of
Babylon in their foreheads. Hand in hand we watched the spirits
of devils gathering the kings of the earth into the place which
is called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. Our unity in these
excursions was so delightful, that my Father was lulled in any
suspicion he might have formed that I did not quite understand
what it was all about. Nor could he have desired a pupil more
docile or more ardent than I was in my flaming denunciations of
the Papacy.

If there was one institution more than another which, at this
early stage of my history, I loathed and feared, it was what we
invariably spoke of as 'the so-called Church of Rome'. In later
years, I have met with stout Protestants, gallant 'Down-with-the-
Pope' men from County Antrim, and ladies who see the hand of the
Jesuits in every public and private misfortune. It is the habit
of a loose and indifferent age to consider this dwindling body of
enthusiasts with suspicion, and to regard their attitude towards
Rome as illiberal. But my own feeling is that they are all too
mild, that their denunciations err on the side of the anodyne. I
have no longer the slightest wish myself to denounce the Roman
communion, but,