d the wheat from the chaff. This we call a
reform. It is enough for me that men so wise were satisfied with their
researches and changes, and I feel little inclination to disturb a
decision that has now received the sanction of nearly two centuries of
practice. To be plain with thee, I hold it discreet to reverence the
opinions of my fathers."

"Though it would seem not of thy grandfathers," said the Italian, drily,
but in perfect good humor. "By San Francesco! thou wouldst have made a
worthy cardinal, had chance brought thee into the world fifty leagues
farther south, or west, or east. But this is the way with the world,
whether it be your Turk, your Hindoo, or your Lutheran, and I fear it is
much the same with the children of St. Peter too. Each has his arguments
for faith, or politics, or any interest that may be named, which he uses
like a hammer to knock down the bricks of his opponent's reasons, and when
he finds himself in the other's intrenchments, why he gathers together the
scattered materials in order to build a wall for his own protection. Then
what was oppression yesterday is justifiable defence to-day; fanaticism
becomes logic; and credulity and pliant submission get, in two centuries,
to be deference to the venerable opinion of our fathers! But let it
go--thou wert speaking of thanking God, and in that; Roman though I am, I
fervently and devoutly join with or without saints' intercession."

The honest baron did not like his friend's allusions, though they were
much too subtle for his ready comprehension, for the intellect of the
Swiss was a little frosted by constant residence among snows and in full
view of glaciers, and it wanted the volatile play of the Genoese's fancy,
which was apt to expand like air rarefied by the warmth of the sun. This
difference of temperament, however, so far from lessening their mutual
kindness, was, most probably, the real cause of its existence, since it is
well known that friendship, like love, is more apt to be generated by
qualities that vary a little from our own than by a perfect homogeneity of
character and disposition which is more liable to give birth to rivalry
and contention, than when each party has some distinct capital of his own
on which to adventure, and with which to keep alive the interest of him
who, in that particular feature, may be but indifferently provided. All
that is required for a perfect community of feeling is a mutual
recognition of, and a common