e chain into the hands of a priest!... And then
the Confessional! 'Tis marvellous!" and he began to break the coals with
the poker. "It's very well," he continued, "if a man is born a Catholic;
I don't suppose they really believe what they are obliged to profess;
but how an Englishman, a gentleman, a man here at Oxford, with all his
advantages, can so eat dirt, scraping and picking up all the dead lies
of the dark ages--it's a miracle!"

"Well, if there is anything that recommends Romanism to me," said
Charles, "it is what you so much dislike: I'd give twopence, if some
one, whom I could trust, would say to me, 'This is true; this is not
true.' We should be saved this eternal wrangling. Wouldn't you be glad
if St. Paul could come to life? I've often said to myself, 'Oh, that I
could ask St. Paul this or that!'"

"But the Catholic Church isn't St. Paul quite, I guess," said Sheffield.

"Certainly not; but supposing you _did_ think it had the inspiration of
an Apostle, as the Roman Catholics do, what a comfort it would be to
know, beyond all doubt, what to believe about God, and how to worship
and please Him! I mean, _you_ said, 'I can't believe this or that;' now
you ought to have said, 'I can't believe the Pope has _power_ to
_decide_ this or that.' If he had, you ought to believe it, whatever it
is, and not to say, 'I can't believe.'"

Sheffield looked hard at him: "We shall have you a papist some of these
fine days," said he.

"Nonsense," answered Charles; "you shouldn't say such things, even in
jest."

"I don't jest; I am in earnest: you are plainly on the road."

"Well, if I am, you have put me on it," said Reding, wishing to get away
from the subject as quick as he could; "for you are ever talking
against shams, and laughing at King Charles and Laud, Bateman, White,
rood-lofts, and piscinas."

"Now you are a Puseyite," said Sheffield in surprise.

"You give me the name of a very good man, whom I hardly know by sight,"
said Reding; "but I mean, that nobody knows what to believe, no one has
a definite faith, but the Catholics and the Puseyites; no one says,
'This is true, that is false; this comes from the Apostles, that does
not.'"

"Then would you believe a Turk," asked Sheffield, "who came to you with
his 'One Allah, and Mahomet his Prophet'?"

"I did not say a creed was everything," answered Reding, "or that a
religion could not be false which had a creed; but a religion can't be
true which has none