deeply the truth of this observation that he repented of his violence, and returned home with tranquillized feelings. "Henry," said he, "I was wrong in prohibiting you from attending our Church. It is not right to prevent the sick from going to the physician. I have no objection against your frequenting our parish Church; on the contrary, I wish it: but never men

on the dispensation to me! No man can permit you to hear the word of God and duly to worship him, consequently no man has a right to forbid it to you. He who believes that he requires such permission, proves, that instead of being a servant of God he is only a slave of man. And what does your Pope mean by this dispensation? either it is good and right for you to worship God, and then you require no such permission; or it is wrong and injurious, and then the Pope dares not give it you, and if he has given it to you, you dare not make any use of it.

Henry rejoiced to find his father so far reconciled; and he only offered in his own defence that he had viewed the prohibition to enter Protestant Churches as a point of discipline, not of morality; that the Roman Catholic Church had imposed it only out of precaution, lest the faith of its members might be endangered, and that a dispensation from it appeared to him by no means improper. But his father thought that Henry reasoned wrong, and that according to the principles of the Roman Catholic Church concerning heresy, such a permission could only be compared to that which a general gives to his spies, to wear for a time the uniform of the enemy, to mingle with them as friends, that they may either watch or mislead them. However, he thought that Henry, though in error, had not acted from evil intentions.

The more concerned his mother had been at the rising violence of his father when they went to church, the more rejoiced was she at this reconciliation. With these feelings of joy, she led the conversation to ano ther subject, and asked Antonio, as he entered, whom

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she also had seen in church, how the Protestant mode of worship had pleased him? "By St. Januarius !" exclaimed he, with Neapolitan animation, "I am extremely pleased with it."

Mother. Why has it pleased you?

Antonio. Because I can understand it.

Mother. That is, because you have learned German. Antonio. That I do not mean; but, because the service is not here performed, as it is with us, in Latin, but in the language of the country.

Mother. You are not in earnest, Antonio!

Antonio. How can divine worship be edifying to the hearers in a language which they do not understand?

Henry. What Antonio says is true, mother. In the holy rites, especially in the mass, the Church has retained the Latin language, partly, because it is consecrated by the great antiquity of the ritual; partly, because it suits better the holy mysteries. The people. would be only diverted in their devotions, if the ritual were performed in their mother tongue, and would have less reverence for the holy mysteries, which, at all events, they cannot understand, and whose power they ought only to feel in their hearts; therefore, the Church permits the holy liturgy to be read only in the Latin language.

Father. What language, Henry, did the Saviour and his Apostles use, when they taught and instituted these mysteries?

Henry. Why, certainly the language of their native country, the Hebrew; or, perhaps, the Greek language, which was very common among them.

Father. And in what language did the Christians of the first centuries celebrate the sacred rites?

Henry. I cannot deny that every assembly of Christians used their native language for that purpose the Greeks, the Greek; the Romans, the Latin; and the Syrians, the Syriac.

Father. You see, dear Henry, that the Christians

had the right to perform public worship, and to celebrate the Sacraments in their mother tongue. We also have this right. That the Western Christians. performed divine worship in Latin was but right, as it was their native tongue, but that the Germans, English, and French, should do this in Latin, is both and wrong and absurd. If devotion be promoted when the language is not understood; or, if any value be attached to the antiquity of a language, and a kind of sanctity be, on this account, stamped upon it, then the or at any rate the Greek language, in which the New was written, and the holy myste. ries were first celebrated, ought to be chosen in preference to the Latin. But why do you so adhere to the Latin ritual? Is it not as if you were afraid that the laity should understand it?

Heb Testament

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Wilhelmina. I should certainly not wish to be married according to the Latin ritual, for I should not know whether I was married or divorced by the words of the priest. What is not understood cannot, I should think, promote devotion. Would a German, that understood no English, be more interested if he heard Hamlet or Macbeth performed in English, than if he saw these master-pieces acted from a German translation?

Antonio, who had abruptly left the room, was now returned with a book, in which he was turning the leaves. It was a German translation of the New Testament, by Van Ess. "I have here," said he, "found a passage which makes me doubt very much if our priests are right in performing the public worship in Latin. St. Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth, in his first Epistle, (chap. xiv. 2.) For he that speaketh' (in the assembly) in an unknown tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit, he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth, speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. Ver. 6.

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tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?' Ver. 9. 'So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, for ye shall speak unto the air.' Ver. 13. Wherefore, let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue, pray that he may interpret.' Ver. 19. Yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that, by my voice, I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.' The Apostle, dear Henry, understood the subject well, and I feel convinced he is quite right, for the German mode of worship has edified me much more than the Latin mass, which I do not understand."

Henry was perplexed :-the family inquired of Antonio, where he had met with that book; he told them all the particulars concerning it :-they were all, especially the father, delighted at his sound understanding, and they exhorted him to read diligently in the Word of God, from which he would not fail to reap the fruit.

CHAPTER VI.

THE evening afforded an opportunity to resume the conversation concerning Henry's change of creed. His father reminded him, that they had determined to come at once to the main point, and to investigate the question, in what connexion the Protestant, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, stands to the aim of Christianity. They seated themselves, domestically, around the table, and, before the commencement of the conversation, his mother provided a safe shelter for Henry against any occasional ebullitions of his father's violence. 66 Regard not your son," said she, as an apostate from our Church, but as a Roman Catholic from his childhood, whom you wish to convert to the Protestant Church." These words awakened a hope in the breast of his father, which was well calculated to attune him to patience and gentleness-it was the hope, as he expressed himself, that Henry would recover, under his paternal roof, that good sense which he had lost in Rome. He, therefore, willingly acceded to the proposal of Wilhelmina, to make use, in their quotations from Scripture, of the translation of the New Testament by the Catholic priest Van Ess, that they might appear perfectly impartial towards Henry.

They soon agreed that the effects of Christ's mission was to be the Saviour of mankind, for his name, Jesus, has this signification; and they were unanimous that he became their Saviour, by saving and delivering them from their sins. St. Matthew i. 21. "And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their