el their need of it, their right to it.
What a high destiny, to be the artist of the people! to devote one's
powers of painting, not to mimicking obsolete legends, Pagan or
Popish, but to representing to the working men of England the
triumphs of the Past and the yet greater triumphs of the Future!'

Luke began at once questioning him about his father.

'And is he contrite and humbled? Does he see that he has sinned?'

'In what?'

'It is not for us to judge; but surely it must have been some sin or
other of his which has drawn down such a sore judgment on him.'

Lancelot smiled; but Luke went on, not perceiving him.

'Ah! we cannot find out for him. Nor has he, alas! as a Protestant,
much likelihood of finding out for himself. In our holy church he
would have been compelled to discriminate his faults by methodic
self-examination, and lay them one by one before his priest for
advice and pardon, and so start a new and free man once more.'

'Do you think,' asked Lancelot with a smile, 'that he who will not
confess his faults either to God or to himself, would confess them
to man? And would his priest honestly tell him what he really wants
to know? which sin of his has called down this so-called judgment?
It would be imputed, I suppose, to some vague generality, to
inattention to religious duties, to idolatry of the world, and so
forth. But a Romish priest would be the last person, I should
think, who could tell him fairly, in the present case, the cause of
his affliction; and I question whether he would give a patient
hearing to any one who told it him.'

'How so? Though, indeed, I have remarked that people are perfectly
willing to be told they are miserable sinners, and to confess
themselves such, in a general way; but if the preacher once begins
to specify, to fix on any particular act or habit, he is accused of
personality or uncharitableness; his hearers are ready to confess
guilty to any sin but the very one with which he charges them. But,
surely, this is just what I am urging against you Protestants--just
what the Catholic use of confession obviates.'

'Attempts to do so, you mean!' answered Lancelot. 'But what if your
religion preaches formally that which only remains in our religion
as a fast-dying superstition?--That those judgments of God, as you
call them, are not judgments at all in any fair use of the word, but
capricious acts of punishment on the part of Heave