"Neither--nothing," he answered, rather bitterly. "I am what half the men of this age are, Sister Celia;--nothing at all. I call myself a Catholic, just to satisfy my mother; and when I see her becoming doubtful of my soundness in her faith, I go to mass with her half a dozen times, to quiet her conscience--and perhaps my own. But, Catholic as I am--so far as I own to anything--I do not believe you have read more Protestant books, or heard more Protestant preaching, than I have. I have tried both religions in turn, and now I believe in nothing. I have lost all faith, whether in religion, in morality, in man, or woman. I see the men of this city, Protestant and Catholic, either bent on pursuing their own pleasures, or on seeking their own interests--thinking of and caring for themselves and nothing in the world else; and I see the women, such as I have described them to you. I find none, of either faith, any better than the rest. What wonder, then, that the fire of my faith--the old, bright, happy trust of my childhood--has blackened and gone out?" "But, Philip, dear Brother," pleaded Celia in great pain, "surely you believe in God?" "I believe in _nothing_," said he, firmly. Celia turned away, grieved at her very heart. "Listen to me, Celia," resumed Philip, now quite serious. "You will not betray me to my mother--I see that in your eyes. You see I can believe in _you_," he added, smiling rather sadly. "There was a time when I believed all that you do, and more. When I was a little child, I used to think that, as Patient told me, God saw me, and loved me, and was ready to be my Friend and Father. All that I noticed different from this in the teaching of my other nurse, Jeannette Luchon, was that she taught me to think this of the Virgin Mary, my patron saint, and my guardian angel, as well as of God. Had I been struck deaf, dumb, and blind at that time, I might have believed it all yet. Perhaps it would have been as well for me. But I grew up to what I am. I watched all these highly religious people who visit here. I heard them invoke the Virgin or the saints to favor--not to forgive, mind you--but, before its committal, to prosper--what they admitted to be sin. I saw my own mother come home from receiving the Eucharist at mass, and tell lies: I knew they were lies, I was taught that it was very wicked in me to tell lies, and also that, in receiving the Eucharist, she had received Christ Himself into her soul. How could I believe both the one and the other? I was taught, again, that if I committed the most fearful sins, a man like myself, sitting in a confessional, could with two words cleanse my soul as if I had never sinned. How could I believe that, when from that cleansing I came home and found it no whit the cleaner? I turn to Protestantism. I hear your preachers tell me that 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord;' that God has 'purer eyes than to behold sin;' and many another passage to the like effect.