Now, I had long known that there was something wrong between my poor, old chap and his Church--the servants declaring that he was no Catholic, or even that he was an unbeliever. “Old John Hickey?” Why, Catholicism was born in him! It was in the blood of his veins, in the marrow of his bones. No matter how harshly he might speak of his Church, nor how long he might neglect his duties, almost unknown to himself, down in the bottom of his heart the old faith lived, warm and strong, and it only needed an emergency to make him turn to the Mother Church as trustingly as a babe would turn to its mother. I found that “Old John,” in his fancied quarrel with the Church, had suffered cruelly. He had neglected his duties, and had then been unhappy because of that neglect. He was very bitter and deeply wounded, and that day he exclaimed sadly: “It’s hard, madam--it’s hard that a man should be made to lose his soul!” “Never say that again, John!” I cried. “There is just one man created who can lose your soul for you, and that man is John Hickey.” He looked at me a moment, then putting one forefinger on my arm he asked, solemnly: “Madam Clara, are you talking as a Catholic or as a Protestant, now?” Laugh I had to, though I saw it hurt the poor, bewildered one before me and belied the tears in my own eyes. But I made answer quickly: “I’m speaking neither as Catholic nor Protestant, but simply as a woman, who, like yourself, has a soul, and does not want to lose it! Don’t look so unhappy! Your Church is beautiful, great and powerful, but there is One who is greater, more beautiful and more powerful. In all the ages there has been but One who left the unspeakable joy of Heaven to come to earth to suffer and toil, to love and lose, to hope and despair, and finally to give up His perfect life to an ignominious death, because His boundless love saw no other way to save us from the horror of eternal death! He paid too great a price for souls to cast them easily away. There is but one Saviour for us all, be we what we may! There is but one God whose smile makes Heaven. We travel by different paths--oh, yes! We wear different liveries, some showing the gorgeous vestments of the stately Catholic, some the solemn drab of the Quaker, others black robes. But the paths all lead to the one place, and the great questions are, do we love the One we seek, and have we loved and helped those we traveled with? John, make Christ your Church, and the mightiest cannot harm you!” and, catching up the scant fold of my riding-habit, I turned and fled from the only sermon I ever preached in my life, while from behind me came certain familiar sentences, such as, “Yis, yis! Ye’re fine horses, that ye are, but it’s too soon for water yit, y’r know, because,” etc., etc., but all spoken in so husky a voice it might have been a stranger’s.