heer absurdity."

"Don't talk in that way," answered Willis, "please don't. I feel all my
heart drawn to the Catholic worship; our own service is so cold."

"That's just what every stiff Dissenter says," answered Charles; "every
poor cottager, too, who knows no better, and goes after the
Methodists--after her dear Mr. Spoutaway or the preaching cobbler. _She_
says (I have heard them), 'Oh, sir, I suppose we ought to go where we
get most good. Mr. So-and-so goes to my heart--he goes through me.'"

Willis laughed; "Well, not a bad reason, as times go, _I_ think," said
he: "poor souls, what better means of judging have they? how can you
hope they will like 'the Scripture moveth us'? Really you are making too
much of it. This is only the second time I have been there, and, I tell
you in earnest, I find my mind filled with awe and devotion there; as I
think you would too. I really am better for it; I cannot pray in church;
there's a bad smell there, and the pews hide everything; I can't see
through a deal board. But here, when I went in, I found all still, and
calm, the space open, and, in the twilight, the Tabernacle just visible,
pointed out by the lamp."

Charles looked very uncomfortable. "Really, Willis," he said, "I don't
know what to say to you. Heaven forbid that I should speak against the
Roman Catholics; I know nothing about them. But _this_ I know, that you
are not a Roman Catholic, and have no business there. If they have such
sacred things among them as those you allude to, still these are not
yours; you are an intruder. I know nothing about it; I don't like to
give a judgment, I am sure. But it's a tampering with sacred things;
running here and there, touching and tasting, taking up, putting down. I
don't like it," he added, with vehemence; "it's taking liberties with
God."

"Oh, my dear Reding, please don't speak so very severely," said poor
Willis; "now what have I done more than you would do yourself, were you
in France or Italy? Do you mean to say you wouldn't enter the churches
abroad?"

"I will only decide about what is before me," answered Reding; "when I
go abroad, then will be the time to think about your question. It is
quite enough to know what we ought to do at the moment, and I am clear
you have been doing wrong. How did you find your way there?"

"White took me."

"Then there is one man in the world more thoughtless than you: do many
of the gownsmen go there?"

"Not that I know of; one