At this discovery he was somewhat tempted to smile; and as in some cases tears lead to thought, so in others do smiles lead to reflection. And is not this the order and ordinance of nature? The human infancy, which is the vestibule of intellect, is a scene commingled of smiles and tears, of passionate sorrows and of noisy joys; then comes reflection. So it had been with Markham in what may be called his theological infancy. Led by circumstances to reflect and to think, he perhaps carried reflection and thought farther than he first intended, or was aware of. But it was something, and indeed a very great matter, that he had penetration enough to see through, what he had charity enough to call, the unconscious mask of fanaticism. Thus led to reflection, his mind did not hastily settle. He was entertained by various speculations, and he made many inquiries, and was forced to find answers for them as well as he could. He had, as people say, his own opinions. What those opinions were we know not, and perhaps Markham himself did not exactly know; and therefore, as he apprehended these opinions indistinctly, he could not communicate them, and thus they were likely to continue his own. Whatever were his literal opinions, the spirit of his theological feeling was catholic; not Roman Catholic, gentle reader, but catholic in its widest acceptation. He did at one time reprobate sectarianism not as a nurse of dangerous heresies, but as a violation of the spirit of nature’s catholicism, and an unauthorised earth-born enclosure of heaven’s free blessings; but he, in time, so far surmounted that feeling, as to discern in the constitution of the human mind the elements of sectarianism; and he at length came to the dangerous conclusion, that there must needs be diversity of opinion so long as there was diversity of minds. This state of mind will easily account for his overlooking the theological education of Clara Rivolta, while and when he thought of paying court to her; and it will also serve to explain the fact of his calmly conversing with Signora Rivolta on subjects connected with theology. For this good lady had also a free and liberal spirit towards dissidents; and did think that in religion there was something eternal and indivisible, which humors of the day could not limit, nor the low walls and fences of sectarianism divide. Her faith, however, and her devotion, however liberal might be her feelings, were modulated and disposed according to the religion in which she had been educated. Those forms she preferred decidedly, but not angrily. Now that part of the conversation which had reference to theology was on the broadest and most general principles; and the parties, so far as they went, coincided.