t you have told it yourself."

"I don't blame you, Vi," she answered coloring. "I presume I shall be
blamed for my efforts to bring you over to the true faith, but my
conscience acquits me of any bad motive. I wanted to save your soul. Mr.
Daly, I do not imagine you can answer all that I have to bring against the
claims of Protestantism. Pray where was that church before the
Reformation?"

There was something annoying to the girl in the smile with which he heard
her question.

"Wherever the Bible was made the rule of faith and practice," he said,
"there was Protestantism though existing under another name. All through
the dark ages, when Popery was dominant almost all over the civilized
world, the light of a pure gospel--the very same that the Reformation
spread abroad over other parts of Europe--burned brightly among the
secluded valleys of Piedmont; and twelve hundred years of bloody
persecution on the part of apostate Rome could not quench it.

"I know that Popery lays great stress on her claims to antiquity, but
Paganism is older still, and evangelical religion--which, as I have
already said, is Protestantism under another name--is as old as the
Christian Era; as the human nature of its founder, the Lord Jesus Christ."

"You are making assertions," said Isadore bridling, "but where are your
proofs?"

"They are not wanting," he said. "Suppose we undertake the study of
ecclesiastical history together, and see how Popery was the growth of
centuries, as one error after another crept into the Christian church."

"I don't believe she was ever the persecutor you would make her out to
have been," said Isadore.

"Popish historians bear witness to it as well as Protestant," he answered.

"Well, it's persecution to bring up those old stories against her now."

"Is it? when she will not disavow them, but maintains that she has always
done right? and more than that, tells us she will do the same again if
ever she has the power."

"I'm sure all Romanists are not so cruel as to wish to torture or kill
their Protestant neighbors," cried Isadore indignantly.

"And I quite agree with you there," he said; "I have not the least doubt
that many of them are very kind-hearted; but I was speaking, not of
individuals, but of the Romish Church as such. She is essentially a
persecuting power."

"Well, being the only true church, she has the right to compel conformity
to her creed."

"Ah, you have already imbibed something of