better than you, the secret but
rapid strides which Rome has made to erect her Dagon of idolatry within
our Protestant land."

Here Julian seeing, or thinking he saw, the drift of Bridgenorth's
suspicions, hastened to exculpate himself from the thought of favouring
the Roman Catholic religion. "It is true," he said, "I have been
educated in a family where that faith is professed by one honoured
individual, and that I have since travelled in Popish countries;
but even for these very reasons I have seen Popery too closely to be
friendly to its tenets. The bigotry of the laymen--the persevering arts
of the priesthood--the perpetual intrigue for the extension of the forms
without the spirit of religion--the usurpation of that Church over the
consciences of men--and her impious pretensions to infallibility, are
as inconsistent to my mind as they can seem to yours, with common-sense,
rational liberty, freedom of conscience, and pure religion."

"Spoken like the son of your excellent mother," said Bridgenorth,
grasping his hand; "for whose sake I have consented to endure so much
from your house unrequited, even when the means of requital were in my
own hand."

"It was indeed from the instructions of that excellent parent," said
Peveril, "that I was enabled, in my early youth, to resist and repel the
insidious attacks made upon my religious faith by the Catholic priests
into whose company I was necessarily thrown. Like her, I trust to live
and die in the faith of the reformed Church of England."

"The Church of England!" said Bridgenorth, dropping his young friend's
hand, but presently resuming it--"Alas! that Church, as now constituted,
usurps scarcely less than Rome herself upon men's consciences and
liberties; yet, out of the weakness of this half-reformed Church,
may God be pleased to work out deliverance to England, and praise to
Himself. I must not forget, that one whose services have been in the
cause incalculable, wears the garb of an English priest, and hath had
Episcopal ordination. It is not for us to challenge the instrument, so
that our escape is achieved from the net of the fowler. Enough, that I
find thee not as yet enlightened with the purer doctrine, but prepared
to profit by it when the spark shall reach thee. Enough, in especial,
that I find thee willing to uplift thy testimony to cry aloud and spare
not, against the errors and arts of the Church of Rome. But remember,
what thou hast now said, thou wilt