"Several times. He is a young Trinity man, good-looking, gentlemanly, correct, moral. He has a pension of two hundred a year, his salary as Inspector of Coast Guards, and great expectations. But he has no faith."
"And never had any, I suppose. That's the way with all these fellows—"
"On the contrary, he was brought up a strict Evangelical, almost a Calvinist. Then he began to read, and like so many others he has drifted into unfaith."
"Well, lend him some books. He knows nothing, of course, about us. Let him see the faith, and he'll embrace it."
"Unfortunately, there's the rub. He has read everything. He has travelled the world; and reversing the venerable maxim, Cœlum, non animum mutant, he has taken his faith from his climate. He has been a Theosophist in London, a 'New Light' in 'Frisco, as he calls it, a Moslem in Cairo (by the way, he thinks a lot of these Mussulmans,—fine, manly, dignified fellows, he says, whose eloquence would bring a blush almost to the cheek of a member of Parliament). Then he has been hand in glove with Buddhist priests in the forests of Ceylon, and has been awfully impressed with their secret power, and still more with their calm philosophy. I believe," said my curate, sinking his voice to a whisper of awe and mystery, "I believe—he has kissed—the—tooth—of—Buddha!"
"Indeed," I replied, "and what good did that operation do him?"
"Not much, I suppose, except to confirm him in that gospel of the sceptic: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy!'"
"Humph! Here, then, stands the case. Our most interesting little parishioner has set her heart on this globe-trotter. There is a big wall in the way, and it won't do to repeat the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe. Now, what is to be done to make the young fellow a Catholic? Has he any prejudices against us?"
"Not one? On the contrary, he rather likes us. He has received all kinds of hospitality from Catholic priests the wide world over, and he thinks us a right honest, jolly lot of fellows."
"H'm! I am not sure that that is exactly what St. Liguori or Charles Borromeo would fancy. But never mind! Now does he know what we hold and believe?"