judgment at all. Or if they
have judged, it has been in the vaguest, most cursory way possible; or
they have looked into Scripture only to find proofs for what they were
bound to subscribe, as undergraduates getting up the Articles. Then they
sit over their wine, and talk about this or that friend who has
'seceded,' and condemn him, and" (glancing at the newspaper on the
table) "assign motives for his conduct. Yet, after all, which is the
more likely to be right,--he who has given years, perhaps, to the search
of truth, who has habitually prayed for guidance, and has taken all the
means in his power to secure it, or they, 'the gentlemen of England who
sit at home at ease'? No, no, they may talk of seeking the truth, of
private judgment, as a duty, but they have never sought, they have never
judged; they are where they are, not because it is true, but because
they find themselves there, because it is their 'providential position,'
and a pleasant one into the bargain."

Reding had got somewhat excited; the paragraph in the newspaper had
annoyed him. But, without taking that into account, there was enough in
the circumstances in which he found himself to throw him out of his
ordinary state of mind. He was in a crisis of peculiar trial, which a
person must have felt to understand. Few men go to battle in cold blood,
or prepare without agitation for a surgical operation. Carlton, on the
other hand, was a quiet, gentle person, who was not heard to use an
excited word once a year.

The conversation came to a stand. At length Carlton said, "I hope, dear
Reding, you are not joining the Church of Rome merely because there are
unreasonable, unfeeling persons in the Church of England."

Charles felt that he was not showing to advantage, and that he was
giving rise to the very surmises about the motives of his conversion
which he was deprecating.

"It is a sad thing," he said, with something of self-reproach, "to spend
our last minutes in wrangling. Forgive me, Carlton, if I have said
anything too strongly or earnestly." Carlton thought he had; he thought
him in an excited state; but it was no use telling him so; so he merely
pressed his offered hand affectionately, and said nothing.

Presently he said, dryly and abruptly, "Reding, do you know any Roman
Catholics?"

"No," answered Reding; "Willis indeed, but I hav'n't seen even him these
two years. It has been entirely the working of my own mind."

Carlton did not answer at