"God help every poor Christian that is out to-night," said Mrs. Doherty. "I hope the Lord will save his reverence from all harm."
"Amen!" answered Norry. "He will have a hard night of it. Had he far to go?"
"He had, agra, forty miles out in Vermont; but sure he could not refuse going. The woman is just dying; and besides, she is a Protestant, who wants to die in the faith."
"Happy for her," said Norry, "if he overtakes her alive. How good the priests are to these Yankees, although they are always ridiculing the clergy; yet, if one of them is going to die, the priest not only forgives them, but is willing to travel any distance to do them a service."
"Sure that's the orders of God and the church," said Mrs. Doherty. "It is not for them alone they are working, but for God, you know."
"That's true," said Norry. "But still and all, when one hears how they are always ridiculing priests and nuns, and sees how they hate our religion, it is very hard, I think, to forgive them."
"Yes, agra," said Peggy, who was better informed than Norry; "so it is hard for flesh and blood to forgive the heretics; but, unless we forgive them, God won't forgive us. The priest knows this well; and so, if there were two sick calls to come at one time to him, as happened lately, one a Protestant and the other a Catholic, he would go to the Protestant first."
"That beats all," said Norry, "and is more than I would do, if I were the priest; for I know well all that is said of him behind his back."
"What harm will all that scandalous talk do the priest?" said Peggy. "It only does him good; and he has a blessing for being 'spoken evil of' like our Lord. He forgives all those whom God forgives; and so, if his enemy, the Protestant, falls sick, and wants his services, he goes to him first, in order that he may be brought into the church, where alone he can be saved."
"Thanks be to God," said Norry. "Is not it a wonder the Protestants don't understand this, and look on the priests and the church as their best friends, seeing that the priests are as ready, and readier, to attend to them than to the Catholics themselves?"