"That's blasphemy! for the Bible tells us that Christ purchased heaven for us by his sufferings and death, and bestows it freely on us by his mercy!"
"Get you gone, you young rascal," retorted the monk, "you are but just come from the cradle; and do you take upon you to understand sacred things which even the learned cannot explain?"
"Did you never read these words," then rejoined the boy—"'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise?'"
On this, the monk, furious with anger, quitted the pulpit, and delivered the poor boy over to the secular arm, by which he was marched off to jail; an awful warning to youngsters of his age and degree.
When Giulia Gonzaga arrived at Naples, it was already beginning to ferment with the leaven of the new opinions, without having yet drawn on itself the displeasure of the Sacred College. She established herself in a good house in the Borgo delle Vergini, (sleeping every night in the nunnery of Santa Clara,) and immediately sought the society of Vittoria Colonna, whose extraordinary interest in the reformed doctrines she was at first quite at a loss to comprehend.
[CHAPTER X.]
VITTORIA DI COLONNA.
"Vittoria è 'l nome; e ben conviensi a nata