the inspired ages just now, Lady Templedale; can you tell me when they commence and when they end ?"

"Not exactly, my dear, but I suppose that Churchmen can.'

"You

"It matters not," resumed Cécile. hold, at all events, that there were by-gone times whose partial or general belief is more binding upon us than that of our own. I will not inquire whether, in those days, signs and wonders were not so universally expected as to render the beholders less critical, and consequently more liable to error than ourselves. I will readily admit that some periods have been more manifestly favoured than others by preternatural testimonies of the Divine countenance, but these, we hold and trust, never have been, and never will be entirely withheld from the Church of Christ."

"Yet surely, dear Cécile," interposed Constance, "the age that was visited by the Redeemer himself - the Apostles whom he himself called, and with whom he held personal communion, may well be esteemed pre-eminently holy ?"

"Pre-eminently, no doubt, my darling child,

but not exclusively.

You would not impugn

the testimony of Paul, whom you so much reverence of two among the Evangelists-of many others whom you still designate as Saints, upon that very authority of the Church which you so indignantly reject in other matters: you would not, I say, impugn their testimony because they are not held to have been so far blessed as to have seen Christ himself. No," continued Cécile, in a low musing tone, "the more I have reflected upon the fatal differences which have so cruelly estranged us, the more I have reduced them to one alone as to the origin of all. You believe that after a certain and undefined period, all Spiritual guidance from above was withdrawn from the Church, while we hold that it was promised to her and will be vouchsafed Vouchsafed to her evermore.'

"It may be, my dear; but at all events we have thus exempted ourselves from the duty of believing in transubstantiation, the infallibility of the Pope, and other mysteries somewhat too abstruse for our homely British understandings."

"It is singular, at all events," remarked

Cécile smiling," that the very two which you have specified are those in which we are no less clearly borne out by the Holy Text than by the undeviating authority of the Church and the still unimpaired assent of the majority."

"The two last arguments, my dear, have not, as you know, great weight with us. With respect to the texts that you can doubtless invoke, you must remember how dangerous it may be to interpret too literally what was spoken in an essentially figurative tongue."

"No doubt, Lady Templedale, but recollect also, how freely the mysterious truths to which you most reverently adhere, are disposed of by others as mere oriental metaphors."

"I must admit, most learned Saint, that we have some little differences to settle with the Unitarians upon that head; but that is not the question at issue between us.

What I want to

hear more about is the Pope, who, at all events is the leading subject, if he is not the supreme ruler, in England now. Do explain to me, once for all, to what extent and under what conditions you recognise his infallible authority. I dare say that you have some very plausible and indeed some very philosophical exposition of the tenet

to offer, if we are to judge from what we have already heard."

"You have already heard a great deal too much, dear Lady Templedale," replied Cécile laughing "it is twelve o'clock, and surely I may be released now."

tr

By no means, my dear; pray sit down again instantly, and explain to us all about his Holiness."

CHAPTER XV.

THE FORBIDDEN SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE Saint having been constrained to reassume her seat, and the latter question having been again repeated, she replied:

66

We hold, as I have already said, that some heavenly guidance is vouchsafed for ever to the Christian world, and we believe that divine inspiration especially to rest upon the successors of St. Peter. Hence the authority, supreme in Spiritual matters, to which all the Catholic communities still yield their willing obedience, not as to the infallibility of any mortal man, but as to the promised direction from above, never failing the Church in the hour of her need."

"Very good; but what I wish to understand, is whether this authority is vested in the Pope