e doing, 'there
didn't want much to drive people away from a religion as makes 'em walk
barefoot over stone floors, like that girl in Father Clement--sending the
blood up to the head frightful. Anybody might see that was an unnat'ral
creed.'

'Yes,' said Miss Pratt, 'but asceticism is not the root of the error, as
Mr. Tryan was telling us the other evening--it is the denial of the great
doctrine of justification by faith. Much as I had reflected on all
subjects in the course of my life, I am indebted to Mr. Tryan for opening
my eyes to the full importance of that cardinal doctrine of the
Reformation. From a child I had a deep sense of religion, but in my early
days the Gospel light was obscured in the English Church, notwithstanding
the possession of our incomparable Liturgy, than which I know no human
composition more faultless and sublime. As I tell Eliza I was not blest
as she is at the age of two-and-twenty, in knowing a clergyman who unites
all that is great and admirable in intellect with the highest spiritual
gifts. I am no contemptible judge of a man's acquirements, and I assure
you I have tested Mr. Tryan's by questions which are a pretty severe
touchstone. It is true, I sometimes carry him a little beyond the depth
of the other listeners. Profound learning,' continued Miss Pratt,
shutting her spectacles, and tapping them on the book before her, 'has
not many to estimate it in Milby.'

'Miss Pratt,' said Rebecca, 'will you please give me Scott's "Force of
Truth?" There--that small book lying against the "Life of Legh
Richmond."'

'That's a book I'm very fond of--the "Life of Legh Richmond,"' said Mrs.
Linnet. 'He found out all about that woman at Tutbury as pretended to
live without eating. Stuff and nonsense!'

Mrs. Linnet had become a reader of religious books since Mr. Tryan's
advent, and as she was in the habit of confining her perusal to the
purely secular portions, which bore a very small proportion to the whole,
she could make rapid progress through a large number of volumes. On
taking up the biography of a celebrated preacher, she immediately turned
to the end to see what disease he died of; and if his legs swelled, as
her own occasionally did, she felt a stronger interest in ascertaining
any earlier facts in the history of the dropsical divine--whether he had
ever fallen off a stage coach, whether he had married more than one wife,
and, in general, any adventures or repartees recorded of him previo