"Explain thy meaning."
"Out of my love to thee, and as a remembrancer for myself, I had made a note in my pocket-book of the time and place of thy admission into the holy Catholic Church, of the taking of thy scapula, and of thy degrees, whereunto I had appended no name. This book escaping from my pocket, was found and delivered to my judges, and considered pregnant proof against me."
"The writing was a great imprudence," said the stranger.
"Confiteor, and whatever shame I may have endured I accept as the fitting punishment of my sins. Alas! my individual sorrows are swallowed up in grief at the thought of the condition of the Church. How doth she sit like a widow in affliction! The flood-gates of error are opened, and the world is deluged with impure streams. When I look on the marble images of the crusaders, lying with crossed legs upon their tombs around us, and on the cold faces of the abbots and mitred bishops, standing in solemn dignity in their niches, they seem saddened and indignant at a reverse that hath changed the very temple erected by Catholic piety over their ashes, and wherein the incense of acceptable worship was offered unto the Lord, into a place of resort for impious and deluded heretics with their tasteless rites. Here, with these mournful monitors around me, I cannot indulge in private resentment while my heart is breaking for the sufferings of my people."
"It is a holy and a commendable frame of mind, my brother," said the stranger. "O, if the spirit that animates thee were universal in our order, how might the wilderness of the world be made to blossom as the Rose of Sharon, and the lamentations of Sion be converted into songs of deliverance!"
THE LOST HUNTER:
A TALE OF EARLY TIMES.
By the Author of "The Knight of the Golden Melice."
12mo. $1.25.