"And popery would do the very same now and here, had she the power," commented Mr. Dinsmore, "for it is her proudest boast that she never changes. She teaches her own infallibility; and what she has done she will do again if she can."
"What is infallibility, papa?" asked Grace. "To be infallible is to be incapable of error or of making mistakes," he answered. "So popery teaching that she has never done wrong or made a mistake justifies all the horrible cruelties she practised in former times; and, in fact, she occasionally tells us, through some of her bolder or less wary followers, that what she has done she will do again as soon as she attains the power."
"Which she never will in this free land," exclaimed Edward.
"Never, provided Columbia's sons are faithful to their trust; remembering that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'" responded his grandfather.
Grace was clinging tightly to her father, and her little face was pale and wore a look of fright.
"What is it, darling?" he asked.
"O papa, will they come here some time and kill us?" she asked, tremulously.
"Do not be frightened, my dear little one," he said, holding her close; "you are in no danger from them."
"I don't believe all Roman Catholics would have Protestants persecuted if they could," remarked Betty. "Do you, uncle?"
"No; I think there are some truly Christian people among them," he answered; "some who have not yet heard and heeded the call, 'Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.' We were talking, not of Papists, but of Popery. Sincere hatred of the system is not incompatible with sincere love to its deluded followers."