an hold the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and
really be spiritual; that the doctrine _must_ have a numbing effect on
the mind, and destroy its simple reliance on the atonement of Christ. I
will take another instance: many a good Catholic, who never came across
Anglicans, is as utterly unable to realize your position as you are to
realize his. He cannot make out how you can be so illogical as not to go
forward or backward; nay, he pronounces your professed state of mind
impossible; he does not believe in its existence. I may deplore your
state; I may think you illogical and worse; but I know it is a state
which does exist. As, then, I admit that a person can hold one Catholic
Church, yet without believing that the Roman Communion is it, so I put
it to you, even as an _argumentum ad hominem_, whether you ought not to
believe that we can honour our Blessed Lady as the first of creatures,
without interfering with the honour due to God? At most, you ought to
call us only illogical, you ought not to deny that we do what we say we
do."

"I make a distinction," said Bateman; "it is quite possible, I fully
grant, for an educated Romanist to distinguish between the devotion paid
by him to the Blessed Virgin, and the worship of God; I only say that
the multitude will not distinguish."

"I know you say so," answered Willis; "and still, I repeat, not from
experience, but on an _a priori_ ground. You say, not 'it is so,' but
'it _must_ be so.'"

There was a pause in the conversation, and then Bateman recommenced it.

"You may give us some trouble," said he, laughing, "but we are resolved
to have you back, my good Willis. Now consider, you are a lover of
truth: is that Church from heaven which tells untruths?"

Willis laughed too; "We must define the words _truth_ and _untruth_," he
said; "but, subject to that definition, I have no hesitation in
enunciating the truism, that a Church is not from heaven which tells
untruths."

"Of course, you can't deny the proposition," said Bateman; "well, then,
is it not quite certain that in Rome itself there are relics which all
learned men now give up, and which yet are venerated as relics? For
instance, Campbell tells me that the reputed heads of St. Peter and St.
Paul, in some great Roman basilica, are certainly not the heads of the
Apostles, because the head of St. Paul was found with his body, after
the fire at his church some years since."

"I don't know about the particular ins