from the victims of his
avarice. He was known and dreaded by all the honest tradesmen of the
city; the curse of the orphan and the widow, whom he unfeelingly drove
into the streets, followed in his path; the children stopped their
games and hid until he passed. That repulsive character which haunts
the evil-doers of society marked the aged banker as an object of dread
and scorn to his immediate neighbors.

In religion Cassier at first strongly advocated the principles of
Lutheranism; but, as is ever the case with those set adrift on the sea
of doubt, freed from the anchor of faith, the definite character of
his belief was shipwrecked in a confusion of ideas. At length he
lapsed into the negative deism of the French infidels, just then
commencing to gain ground in France. He joined them, too, in open
blasphemies against God and plotting against the stability of the
Government. The blood chills at reading some of the awful oaths
administered to the partisans of those secret societies. They proposed
to war against God, to sweep away all salutary checks against the
indulgence of passion, to level the alter and the throne, and advocated
the claims of those impious theories that in modern times have found
their fullest development in Mormonism and Communism.

Further on we shall find this noxious weed, that flourishes in the
vineyards whose hedges are broken down, producing its poisonous fruit.
But it was at this period of our history that he became a frequent
attendant at their reunions, returning at midnight, half intoxicated,
to pour into the horrified ears of his wife and children the issue of
the last blasphemous and revolutionary debate that marked the progress
and development of their impious tendencies.

No wonder Heaven sent on the Cassier family the curse that forms the
thrill of our tragic memoir.

Chapter III.

A Mixed Marriage.

The Catholic Church has placed restrictions on unions that are not
blessed by Heaven. Benedict XIV. has called them DETESTABLE. A
sad experience has proved the wisdom of the warning. When the love
that has existed in the blinding fervor of passion has subsided into
the realities of every-day life, the bond of nuptial duty will be
religion. But the conflict of religious sentiment produces a divided
camp.

The offspring must of necessity be of negative faith. When intelligence
dawns on the young soul, its first reasoning powers are caught in a
dilemma. Reverent