manded she. "Don't the Methodists label
everything `wicked' that one wants to do?"

"`One' sometimes means another," replied Mr Raymond, with a funny look
in his eyes. "They do not put that label on anything I want to do. I
cannot answer for other people."

"I am sure they would put it on a thousand things that I should," said
Miss Newton.

"Am I to understand that speaks badly for them?--or for you?"

"Mr Raymond! You know I make no profession of religion. I think it is
much better to be free."

The look in Mr Raymond's eyes seemed to me very like Divine compassion.

"Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose
that `making no profession' will excuse you to the Lord? Does your
Bible read, `He that maketh no profession shall be saved'? And also--
Are you free?"

"Am I free? Why, of course I am!" she cried. "I can do what I like,
without asking leave of priest or minister."

"God forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can
do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth
shall come between Him and me."

"That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a
young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against
everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?--no, not
for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her
exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won't dance, because Mr
Gardiner disapproves of it; she can't sing a song, of the most innocent
sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won't do this, and
she can't go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what
do you call that?"

"Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have
the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to
human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan's two grand
masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto
himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: `Ye shall be as
gods'--`Yea, hath God said?'--and lastly, `There is no God.' To the
weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery,
offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life
with authority--offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-goddess in its
worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every
trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for
you