ds and forwards meditatively across
the grass waiting for him to descend to breakfast. He hurried down, and
as he came to his host, remarked, "The drift of your story is not quite
clear to me."

"I wish I had the sequel written," the young man replied, "I am trying
to lead on to a great matter."

BOOK II.

CHAPTER XVI.

A POLITICAL SERMON.

"In the crowded old Cathedral all the town were on their knees."

--D'ARCY MCGEE

"That's not preaching _la morale_. And it's _actionable_!" a vigorous
man energetically gesticulated among the crowd in the Circuit Court
Room.

The subject of excitement was a sermon by the Cure.

Messire L'Archeveque, of Dormilliere, was in most respects an
unimpeachable priest. He ministered to the sick faithfully, after the
rites of the Church, he gave to the poor, he rendered unto Caesar.
But--but, he hated Liberalism. On this point he was rabid; and as his
Reverence was a stout, apoplectic person, of delivery and opinions not
accustomed to criticism, it sometimes laid him somewhat open to
ridicule.

How the sermon was delivered, matters little to us. Suffice it that it
was a bold denunciation of the Liberals, named by their party name, and
that there were some strong expressions in it:

"My brothers--when the priest speaks, it is not he who speaks,--but God."

"My brethren, when the Priest commands you, it is the Church which
commands you; and the voice of the Church is the voice of the Eternal.
... Look at France. Remind yourselves what she was in the centuries of
her faith, devout and glorious, the lily among the kingdoms of the
earth, because she was the Eldest Daughter of the Church. Behold her at
this time, among the nations, dying in the terrible embraces of
FREE-MASONRY!!"

"Take warning by her, brethren. Follow her not! It is the Liberals who
have done this. Crush out the seeds of that doctrine! Let the spirits
which call themselves by this name never have peace among you. Avoid
them! Distrust them! Have nothing to do with that people! May the wrath
of our Father descend upon them, the damnation of the infernal dungeons!
and--" he brought down his book's edge loudly on the pulpit,--"the
excommunication of the Church of God, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman!"

The book was taken up once more, and slamming it down again with all its
force, the good cure turned and waddled from the pulpit.

* * * * *

Since the first moments w