we have listened to our own feelings, and have obeyed the dictates of our gratitude, which always impels us to testify our favour towards Shirley, by any means within the compass of our ability, I must remark to you, that it is not usual that the members of the ancient superstition should interest themselves in procuring an appointment for any enlightened individual of our reformed religion, and it is still less usual that such an application should prove successful, that we should permit a person coming under the disadvantages of that introduction, to enrol himself amongst our retinue, without great caution and strict scrutiny. We are con tented to consider the necessity of these as superseded, by the pledge which we receive for your fidelity in the long-tried services of our Steward."

"Permit me once again, my Lord, " (exclaimed a person standing near Lord Arding), "to enter my protest against

this measure. It is not only necessary that an action should not be immediately hurtful; we must consider it in its bearings, in its probable, even in its possible consequences. We must so act, that good may come from all we do. Let us do nothing idly. We are watchmen, who must not only repel danger when it overtakes us, but look out for it, anticipate it, commence our defences against it, even so soon as its remote approach shall be perceptible, or even suspected. Highly as all moral feelings are to be appreciated when they emanate from that source which imparts to them life, from pure and undefiled faith, we must be careful that we do not suffer minor points to interfere with claims ten thousand-fold more important. I would not for a moment, be supposed to impugn the long-tried fidelity of your Steward; but, my Lord, are you to suffer your

gratitude for this fidelity to interfere with a concern which, in the present posture of affairs, becomes even alarmingly momentous? From the best of men, we can only hope honesty and virtue; the power of glancing into the human heart, the Almighty has reserved for himself alone. It is long since Shirley has had communication with his nephew by any other medium than that of letters. By this means Archibald has been able always to assume the most plausible appearance, secure from detection, if, indeed, it were only an appearance, by reason of the remoteness of his abode rendering him perfectly safe from that discovery which the reports of others might make. What is Archibald Shirley at this moment-what has he ever been? Always a Catholic, entirely devoted to the Countess, and under the immediate control of the confessor, Valerius, his

spiritual father. Even this circumstance should have rendered him an object of suspicion to you, my Lord. You should very cautiously have hesitated in receiving one whose office places him so immediately about your person, from the recommendation of such an individual. In such a case hesitation would have been prudence,— suspicion, self-defence. But what is the actual position of the man, who thus intrudes on you a secretary of his appointment? He is a Monk-a Monk of the order of Jesus- a Monk in pu pillage to Ignatius de Loyola-a Monk of that order, whose principal tenet enforces it as a matter of conscience, that its professors should aim, by every action, at the subversion and utter destruction of any new modes of faith, all of which they call heresies; that they should put forth every power of their soul for the effecting of such a purpose;

that fraud, guile, even violence, are permitted, if employed in the attainment of such an end; in a word, that all means are sanctified by such an end. When they made the Bible,—that rock of our salvation,-that only sure tower of our spiritual defence, a sealed book to the race of men who were to be saved by an implicit belief in doctrines they were not permitted to examine, they no longer felt themselves bound to make it the standard of their life, the rule of their actions. They had no fear of being reproached with inconsistency by their several flocks, because they had cunningly put it out of the power of the laity to discover the existence of that inconsistency. They, therefore, never thought it necessary to remember that they were forbidden to do evil, that good might come of it. For what deeply-hidden purpose may the man who now stands before us be sent