us talk do the priest?" said Peggy. "It
only does him good; and he has a blessing for being 'spoken evil of'
like our Lord. He forgives all those whom God forgives; and so, if his
enemy, the Protestant, falls sick, and wants his services, he goes to
him _first_, in order that he may be brought into the church, where
alone he can be saved."

"Thanks be to God," said Norry. "Is not it a wonder the Protestants
don't understand this, and look on the priests and the church as their
best friends, seeing that the priests are as ready, and readier, to
attend to them than to the Catholics themselves?"

"How can they understand it when they are blinded by love of money,
impurity, and the hatred that the ministers excite against the church in
the minds of their hearers? Wasn't our Lord himself hated by those whom
he most loved, and put to death by them? It is so with every priest who
follows his steps, now as well as then. The world will always hate
good."

This Christian philosophy was a little too sublime for poor Norry's
mind, who was a long time among the Yankees, sufficiently instructed in
the customs of this "free country" to be ready to observe the law of
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life;" and who, besides, had
her naturally warm temper rather spoiled from her continual rencontres
with her mistress on such subjects as confession, priests' celibacy,
purgatory, and other subjects too profound for the understanding of her
mistress to know any thing about them, and too sacred in the eyes of
Norry to allow them to be irreverently handled without saying something
in their defence. It requires not only a perfect acquaintance with the
sublime and heavenly tenets of Catholicity to speak of them with
precision and propriety, but, in addition to a deep study of the truths
of true religion, the _practice of her precepts_, and the frequent
reception of the sacraments, are necessary to imbue the mind with the
true Christian notions regarding her high commands.

Poor Norry "had not a chance," she said, of going to her duties for
several years; and that is why she considered "Peggy Doherty's" talk
about forgiveness so strange and unaccountable.

"Yes, a _Greffour_," resumed "old Peggy," "we must forgive all the
world; and myself would forgive any thing sooner than kidnappin' or
stealing away the children of Catholics, which these Yankee parsons are
so fond of doing."

"O, so they are, the villains," said Norry. "Did