CHAPTER XVIII. Tho' Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, holy chiefs, DRYDEN. "GERALDINE!" said Katherine Graham, some days after this conversation, when, having returned from a walk with Mr. Everard, she found her friend still surrounded by books and papers; "Geraldine! how long do you intend to keep up this mad search after perfection,-hunting after it in vain through the Protestant communities, and now, alas! tempted to rush into that ensnaring Church, from which the victim cannot escape, but through an ordeal of spiritual anathema enough to daunt the stoutest heart? Why be so much dissatisfied with your own Church, because you find that she differs from the primitive Christians? God knows, I am not particularly attached to your venerable Establishment!' but never should I dream of leaving her, because she was unlike a set of people just emerging from Judaism or idolatry, whose minds were evidently in a great state of confusion from the rebukes given them in Paul's Epistles." 66 Then why does she claim affinity in doctrine and practice?" said Geraldine; "why does she carry on a perpetual warfare between the spirit and the letter of her faith? why hold out that which she is ashamed to fulfil ?-Oh, Katherine, she is full of cowardice, and therefore full of deception. She is VOL. I.-19 a beautiful delusion-alluring, then deceiving, the soul." 66 Why, I told the Warden all this myself, which I am sure was bold enough," cried Katherine : "but you were then as indignant with me for it as he was." "Alas!" continued Geraldine, "a member of the Church of England knows not what to think. He has the whole Bible put into his hands, and is repeatedly told that the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants. Accordingly, it often happens that a sincere and pious man, after much study and prayer, is led to form for himself a rule of faith, according to his view of God's will and his own obligations. But no! this must not be permitted; for this man is a' member of the Church,' his opinions are shown by his fellows to be far from orthodox, according to the standard of the thirty-nine articles, and the authority of the Church is proved to him from the very Bible he holds in his hand: so, being a humble and candid man, he perceives and acknowledges the express command of Christ to hear his ministers, and he turns to the rule of faith laid down by his divinely appointed Church. He reads, and ponders over the Articles,' and discovers, by their express declaration, that they do not claim divine inspiration, and only insist on being obeyed as far as they follow Scripture. Who, then, is to be judge of their conformity to Scripture? Himself? Then he is made dictator to that very Church which his Bible tells him implicitly to obey! What a state of confusion and contradiction for his mind to be in! Some relief is then offered him, in the statement, that, although the founders of the English Church cannot claim the guidance of the Holy Ghost to decide the obscure points of faith in Scripture, yet they believe that this atsistance was vouchsafed to the Christian Church in the early centuries, and therefore they receive its decisions as infallible. The member of the Church of England, much comforted, then turns to the infallible interpretation of the early Church, and finds himself, as it were, in a new world, amongst a set of doctrines and opinions, so different from those of the Church of England, that, after this, peep into antiquity, the poor bewildered man either consents to remain in the vague supposition that the Church of England, though she has cheated him, is just as likely to be right as any other Church, or he mentally wanders from creed to creed, or he banishes the subject altogether from his mind-or what is left for him now, Katherine ?-he becomes a Catholic; and, what is more, he remains one!" "You, Geraldine, remain a Catholic! With your understanding, aye! and pride of understanding too -with your habits, like, my own, of independent thought and action! You can never remain in such a silly pompous Church!" "Yes I can," said Geraldine smiling; "I can submit to authority, when once I trace it from a divine source. You have often said of me, partly in jest, perhaps, that in married life I should struggle for supremacy: but the time may come when I shall prove your double mistake, by acting on the same one principle. For, as I hold the submission of a wife to her husband to be of divine appointment, you would see me yield willingly, cheerfully-with this all-important proviso, that I do not marry a madman or a fool! In the same spirit of obedience on conviction, I consent to obey a Church which is to me as the voice of God; for having once submitted to the proofs given me of the divine nature of her authority, I yield—and in this case without any proviso-for, in marriage, even a sensible man may be at times capricious; but the voice of the Church having once spoken, changes not." "You speak here of her dogmas; but ah! re member the corruptions of her discipline, of her practice: think of the deceit, the tyranny, the immoralities of priestcraft!" "Dear Katherine, I have, during the sleepless nights of the last month, gone through nearly a brain fever on this very subject. The dread of being irrevocably enthralled, like Zulic,' in the 'Veiled Prophet; the terror inspired by the 'Papist' dealings with the unseen world; their crossings, their Latin, and their secret prayers; with all the horrors of Protestant tradition, rush upon me, and I gasp, and stare around, exclaiming, there is yet escape.' 2.99 "And why then do you not take warning by this merciful impression on your mind?" said Miss Graham ; "this conviction, even at the last hour of the rash step you are about to take-this God-send to you-ill as you deserve it!" "Because these impressions are not convictions," returned Geraldine, "and I look upon them to be any thing but God-sent: they are rather devil-sent, and will not stand the Ithuriel spear of truth." "Truth!" exclaimed Katherine impatiently, "all the world cants about truth, each one laying claim to it." 66 There, Katherine, we are quite agreed; but I divide the Protestant seekers after truth into three classes. The first follow Pilate, and, having asked 'what is truth?' are content to let it rest in doubt for ever; while the second investigate for the purpose of confirming themselves in every thing they had previously thought, and Compound for truths they are inclined to, "A very pretty lady-like way of quoting Hudibras," said Katherine laughing," and now for your third class?" 6 "My third class," continued Geraldine, "are they who are honestly determined to follow the truth, even though, like the Jew, they find it a stumbling block,' and like the Greek, foolishness ;' and against both these obstacles has the Protestant to struggle in his conformity to the Catholic Church." "Geraldine!" cried her friend, "you cannot surely all at once change the whole bent of your thoughts and opinions! You cannot adopt, without repugnance of feeling, all those outward forms, and internal persuasions, which you have ever been taught to esteem false and pernicious?" "I tell you that it is a struggle, Katherine.The first time I made the sign of the cross, I trembled as though I were binding myself to some incantation. I cannot yet invoke any saint, still less the Virgin Mother of my God, without a rush of previous misconception encircling and obscuring the truth I would hold; and I am still bewildered and terrified on the subject of plenary indulgences, from the notion instilled into me all my life, that indulgence was leave to commit sin.' Nay more, I confess to several things, which, even when explained, I can neither admire nor approve!" 6 "What infatuation !" exclaimed Miss Graham, "to enter a Church in which there are things you can neither admire nor approve." 66 Now, Katherine," replied Geraldine, "confess to me with your usual integrity, would it not be far greater infatuation to admit, as I do, the Divine authority of Christ's One Church, and then to deny the several points of faith which did not suit me? This would be, this is, the conduct of nine tenths of the members of the Church of England, who idolize their Church as a whole, and disobey on principle half her commands. But this inconsistency, this |