After the Anglican had taken his leave, he talked for some time on indifferent topics, but at length renewed the former conversation with an air, as if he had recollected something, though I rather suspect he had prepared himself. "Pray, at what time did the change take place from your doctrine, respecting the Eucharist, to that professed by all Christians three hundred years ago?" I begged of him to put his question more clearly. "If your doctrine on this point be the true one, it was taught by the apostles, and received by the first Christians; then, our interpretation must have been introduced at some subsequent period: I ask you to fix that period." There were better reasons than I at the time supposed for my inability to give a precise answer. "It was introduced gradually during the dark ages."--"In the first place, _gradually_--that is impossible: the question is, whether the body of Christ is really or figuratively present: the people must have known in which sense they believed it to be present, and would have resisted innovation. Do you think it would be easy at this day to make the people of England believe in the real presence?"--"No; because they have already rejected it."--"I admit the difference; but at any time it must have been impossible to change the faith of the people without their perceiving it; and the controversy, which the attempt must have excited, would have come down to our days in works written on both sides: the memory of the Arian controversy is not lost." I was struck by the argument and the parallel. He pressed me. "What do you call the dark ages?"--"The tenth century is called by Cave, a learned English divine, _seculum tenebrosum_."--"Berenger of Angers, in the eleventh century, who first taught the figurative sense, found all the world in the belief of the real presence."--"First? you forget the apostles."--"It is for you to prove that they taught the figurative sense. St. John Chrysostom, who lived in the fourth age, preached on this subject like a catholic doctor of the present day."--"Really? I have his works; I will refer to the passages."--"Will you give me leave to send you a treatise on this subject, entitled _La perpétuité de la foi de l'église touchant l'eucharistie_?" As I was going to convert the Jews by a Bampton lecture, I said I did not wish to engage in reading a great work in old French: I inferred that it was old French from the word _touchant_. Mr. Beaumont assured me that it was written in very good French of the present time, as also in a very agreeable style: he told me, that at any rate I should have time to read the tract of Nicole, of a few pages only, stating the argument; that if I did not approve of it, I need not read the _Perpétuité_ by Arnaud, which was the development of Nicole's text. I assented, and he wished me a good evening.