"My dear friend," said Mr Lennard, greatly astonished, "I certainly had never regarded the Church of Rome in that light; I looked upon it as the ancient Church, corrupted in the course of ages." "It has no true claim to be a Christian Church at all," said the general; "it is like the cuckoo, which, hatched in the nest of the hedge-warbler, by degrees forces out the other fledglings, and usurps their place. So did paganism treat Christianity; although, fostered by God, the latter was enabled to exist, persecuted and oppressed as it was, and still to exert a benign influence in the world. On examining the tenets of many who are called heretics, we find that it was not the creed they held, but the opposition they offered to the Romish system, which was their crime, and brought down persecution on their heads. When we read of the horrible cruelties practised on the Waldenses and Albigenses, the followers of Huss in Bohemia, the true Protestants of all ages down to the time of Luther, the detestable system of the Inquisition, the treatment of the inhabitants of the Netherlands by Alva and the Spaniards, when whole hecatombs of victims were put to death at the instigation of the pope and his cardinals, the destruction of thousands and tens of thousands of Huguenots in France, the martyrdoms of the noble Protestants of Spain, the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and the fires of Smithfield--all these diabolical acts performed with the concurrence and approval of the papal power--can we for a moment hesitate to believe that that power owes its origin, not to the Divine Head of the Church, but to that spirit of evil, Satan, the deadly foe of the human race? Can any system founded on it, however much reformed it may appear, fail to partake of the evil inherent in the original itself. It is from not seeing this that so many are led to embrace the errors-- I would rather say the abominations--of Rome; while others are taught to look at them with lenient eyes, and to believe that the system itself is capable of reformation. Before true and simple faith can be established throughout the world the whole must be overthrown and hurled into the depths of the sea, as completely as have been the idols and idolatrous practices of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, where Christianity has been established." Mr Lennard leant his head on his hand. "I must think deeply of what you say; you put the whole matter in a new light to me. I have had no affection for Rome; still, I have always regarded her as a Church founded on the apostles and prophets."