what? For Mr. Buxton's spiritual kingdom! Well, Anthony
thought to himself as the weeks went by and his new thoughts sank deeper,
if it is all a superstitious dream, at least it is a noble one!

What, too, was the answer, he asked himself, that England gave to Father
Campion's challenge, and the defence that the Government was preparing
against the spiritual weapons of the Jesuits? New prisons at Framingham
and Battersea; new penalties enacted by Parliament; and, above all, the
unanswerable argument of the rack, and the gallows finally to close the
discussion. And what of the army that was being set in array against the
priests, and that was even now beginning to scour the country round
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and London? Anthony had to confess to himself
that they were queer allies for the servants of Christ; for traitors,
liars, and informers were among the most trusted Government agents.

In short, as the spring drew on, Anthony was not wholly happy. Again and
again in his own room he studied a little manuscript translation of
Father Campion's "Ten Reasons," that had been taken from a popish
prisoner, and that a friend had given him; and as he read its exultant
rhetoric, he wondered whether the writer was indeed as insincere and
treacherous as Mr. Scot declared. There seemed in the paper a reckless
outspokenness, calculated rather to irritate than deceive.

"I turn to the Sacraments," he read, "none, none, not two, not one, O
holy Christ, have they left. Their very bread is poison. Their baptism,
though it be true, yet in their judgment is nothing. It is not the saving
water! It is not the channel of Grace! It brings not Christ's merits to
us! It is but a sign of salvation!" And again the writer cried to
Elizabeth to return to the ancient Religion, and to be in truth what she
was in name, the Defender of the Faith.

"'Kings shall be thy nursing fathers,' thus Isaiah sang, 'and Queens thy
nursing mothers.' Listen, Elizabeth, most Mighty Queen! To thee the great
Prophet sings! He teaches thee thy part. Join then thyself to these
princes!... O Elizabeth, a day, a day shall come that shall show thee
clearly which have loved thee the better, the Society of Jesus or Luther's
brood!"

What arrogance, thought Anthony to himself, and what assurance too!

Meanwhile in the outer world things were not reassuring to the friends of
the Government: it was true that half a dozen priests had been captured
and examined by torture