nrighteous and sinner appear?"

"You seem to have a natural gift for preaching," said La Croissette,
after a pause. "Where will they appear, say you? Why, if our priests
are to be believed, those of them, even the very worst, who have money
enough to pay for masses and indulgences, may buy themselves off from
purgatory, and shine in glory with the best."

"Does not that carry incredibility and absurdity on the very face of
it?"

"It seems very hard on the poor man who can't buy himself off," said La
Croissette. "You Huguenots, then, don't believe in it?"

"Most assuredly not. God accepts no prayers that do not spring from a
lowly and contrite heart: and they may be offered by a poor man as well
as a rich one."

"But does not a poor man's soul require those purgatorial fires?"

"Oh no, my dear La Croissette! The Son of God told of no purgatory--only
of heaven and hell. And He was so truthful that He would not have told
of a hell if there had not been one--nor have failed to tell of a
purgatory if there had been one. The end would not have been
commensurate with the means, had He laid down his life to save us from
anything short of condign punishment, or to save us only incompletely.
If there were a purgatory to endure at any rate, where would be the
all-sufficiency of his sacrifice once offered?"

He bade us believe in him and be saved. He did not say, 'believe also in
my mother, and my brethren, and my apostles, and ask them to ask me to
save you.' He said, 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.'"

"No! did he, though?" said La Croissette, suddenly checking his horse.

At the same moment, a woman sprang from the hedge and laid her hand on
the shaft, saying:

"Good sir, save us! we perish!"

"What is the matter?" said he, starting.

"We are fugitives from Nismes; we were beaten, we were burnt, we were
pillaged."

"My poor good woman, there are numbers in like case."

"But we starve," said she, bursting into tears. "My aged mother and my
little ones."

"I am very sorry for you, but I am a poor man myself--here, take this
trifle."

"Alas, we cannot eat money!" in a tone of such mournful reproach.

"No, true; it will buy a little bread--but there are no shops. Jean," in
a lower voice to me, "I've a loaf in the cart, shall we part with it?"

"Give it to her by all means," said I.

Before he did so, he said to her, "True, you cannot eat money, but money
will buy