The question was, "Whether the bread and wine in the sacrament of the Eucharist are, in virtue of the words of consecration, actually and substantially changed into the body and blood of Christ, together with his soul and his divinity." We maintained the affirmative, and three or four others, with fictitious earnestness, denied the proposition; advancing arguments which they had the precaution to assure us beforehand were all borrowed from the heretics. The contest went off, as it invariably did; we were, of course, right, and our opponents wrong. The reasoning of my good and clever Conti, and that which I contributed myself, were the _ne plus ultra_, for the school, and even elicited uproarious applause. The heretics were discomfited, the Roman Catholics triumphant. We were the two heroes who had gained the battle, the laurel crown alone was wanting. Who after our arguments could possibly have doubted a doctrine so boldly asserted, so powerfully demonstrated? Who would have dared to have sided with the heretics, viz. with those who denied transubstantiation? I believe not a shadow of doubt entered the mind of any one excepting myself. In the midst of this universal satisfaction, I alone remained unconvinced. To me, the answers to the objections appeared feeble and inadequate. I was disquieted within me. I asked the young Conti how he was pleased with the "circle?" whether any of our answers seemed to him to want weight? "I am pleased with the arguments I brought forward," he replied, "and still more so with those that you yourself advanced. Indeed, I am not aware that more could possibly have been said. But after all, the matter is a mystery which cannot be explained by reasoning; faith must come to our aid. Henry Moore, a celebrated Englishman, has well observed, as Erasmus relates, _Crede quod habes, et habes_,--'Believe you receive, and you do receive.'" Of course, it was not proper for me to infect the young student with my doubts; he was better pleased in having discovered, as he fancied, the mystery of that religious impossibility than an alchymist would have been in finding the philosopher's stone. I had none in whom I could confide. My colleague and friend, Professor Borg, was a man who would rather have renounced his reason, or doubted of his very existence, than have denied a dogma of faith; besides which, he was of opinion that such points ought not to be too freely discussed. "What did you think of our controversy?" said I. "All went off well," he replied; "he is an excellent young man, that Conti. What he said pleased me very much; and very true is that famous verse of Salomone Fiorentino with which he concluded: Vedi che in fronte ha scritto: adora e taci." It would evidently have been useless to enter upon any discussion with such a man as my good friend Borg; I therefore came to the conclusion that I had better study the thing by myself, and endeavour to ascertain the real truth.