to me, very tender, very merciful, very considerate, far beyond my deserts. I know now, too, although I did not know it then, that he whose prayers must surely have been very acceptable to God, was on the mount with raised-up hands, praying God, morning, noon, and night, that He would have mercy on his friend; sparing his innocent flesh neither fast, nor vigil, nor scourge, that light to see and grace to do might come, in all profusion and abundance, to me. At all events, the end drew nigh, the ordeal was nearly over. I had spared myself no pains, no labour, no trouble. I had exaggerated every difficulty on the one side to the utmost. I had lowered the weight of the arguments which were against my preconceived notions as much as I had heightened those which told for me. I had left nothing undone, so far as I knew, to act like an honest and sincere man—a man who would be influenced, so far as he could help, neither by undue prejudice nor human affection. Above all things, I had endeavoured to keep my heart out of the matter. I had tried to make the whole affair one of my head and my intellect, and not of my affections or my heart; and, lo! the day was come, and I stood face to face with what I felt to be an inevitable conclusion; a necessity, a dire necessity, if you will, but still a strict, stern, inevitable necessity. As I have already said more than once, I have not proposed to show you the manner how, or the reasons by which I was led to this conclusion: I merely tell you the conclusion to which in all honesty, in all sincerity, and in all truth, I was compelled to come, and it was this-that I must, of necessity, be either an infidel or a member of the one Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church of Rome. I question no other man's sincerity or truth. I make

no reflection upon any one. I simply tell you, in the plainest words which I can use, the conclusion to which I, in the exercise of my sincerity, was compelled, unwillingly enough, so far as nature was concerned, to come; the conclusion to which I, as firmly as I believe that I am writing these lines in the presence of my Maker, believe that every man who studies this matter as I studied it must necessarily and infallibly come.

My mind was quite made up as to what I must do nearly a week before the end of the appointed three months. That week I spent as much as possible in solitude and prayer, and in a reconsideration of the whole matter. That I might be the less distracted, I besought even Eustace to leave me to myself until the appointed day. I had, for various reasons, kept the growth of my convictions a profound secret from him and from every one else. On the last night I scarcely went to bed, and I arose at early dawn. I struggled hard, as well as ever I could, and in prayer with God, that I might be able to overcome myself to the end, for even yet my nature and my prejudices rebelled sadly against the dictates of my intellect and will; but I never wavered; God gave me grace never to waver from what was to be done, although He did not make it the less bitter to me, perhaps that thus, in his goodness, by depriving me of sensible consolation, He might increase my merit and my reward.

Early on the morning of the appointed day Eustace came to my room. My eyes were blinded with tears, so that I could not see him quite plainly, but I saw, nevertheless, that he was very pale, and trembling with anxiety. Without a word he ran over to me and put his hands, as he had often done before, upon my

shoulders. I gazed at him for a moment, as I tried in vain to form the words which stuck so painfully on my tongue. As I felt the great sobs beginning to rise in my throat, I knew instinctively that I must get it over at once, or that I should break down altogether. I made one effort to whisper in his ear, but my head drooped down until it rested on his shoulder, as it came from me in broken, almost inarticulate words:

"God help me, Eustace (that was the way I put it), God help me, for I must be a Catholic, too."

As my words fell upon his ear, he caught me to his breast and broke out into a long, loud cry. As for me, I could only sob upon his shoulder, and repeat the self-same words:

"God help me, Eustace, oh, God help me, for I must be a Catholic, too."

CHAPTER IX.

DARKENING CLOUDS.

UPPOSE, courteous reader, some three months to have passed since the event recorded in the

last chapter. They have been very eventful months to us, for during them we have made the passage of our Rubicon, in other words, we have been duly instructed and received into the bosom of God's holy Catholic Church. Both he and I have felt to the full, have realized in our very inmost heart that we have taken the great step of our lives, a step whose consequences must necessarily be of the last importance to us, must necessarily exercise an allpowerful influence and direction upon all our coming years. In the shadow of the great change that was upon us, and engaged as we have been in the absorbing duties necessary to enable us to make that change in a proper and becoming spirit, in such a way as to derive all those spiritual benefits, all those graces which ought, from the nature of things, to flow upon us on our reception into the Church, we have not as yet thought much of that future. We made our first communion on the glorious festival of All Saints; a day to be for ever remembered by us both. From the very first God had been so good, so tender, and so merciful to poor Eustace; had filled him to such utter overflowing with his choicest consolations and

his most tender gifts; had so drawn that pure, that innocent, that child-like heart to Himself, that I had looked on, as it were, from a distance, lost in wonder and astonishment at what, even yet, I could scarcely comprehend or understand. For, it had been very different with me. It pleased God to lead me by very different ways. My conversion had been one of my reason and intellect, and, up to the last, I had felt but few, scarcely any, of the consolations of God. It was only on the morning of my first communion, only when my God was reposing for the first time in my unworthy bosom, that his blessed consolations came down upon me in such abundant profusion that I was fain to bury my face between my hands, that I might hide the floods of tears which, spite of all my efforts, rained down upon the ground; that I was fain to cry aloud in the excess of my overburdened heart, Too much, O Lord, too much! I had walked so long in the stormy and dreary way of desolation that I was almost afraid there was some hidden delusion, some dangerous deceit in it, when it pleased the Lord, my Shepherd, to lead me into his pleasant and his flowery pastures, and to feed me with the waters of life; when it pleased Him to anoint my head with the oil of his gladness, and to place in my hand the chalice which inebriates with love those to whom it is given to drink; when it pleased Him to lead me into the house of the Lord, that I might dwell there all the days of my life. It would be unbecoming, even if I were able, to write much on this matter. Let it suffice to say that, even if I had never received any more of God's favours, and my whole after life has been made up of them, the consolations which I received from my dear Lord's hand on the day of my first communion would more than