All that had taken place within the last few hours, had worked an extraordinary change in the sensations of Walter de la Tremblade. New perceptions had forced themselves upon him, both in regard to his own heart, and to the conduct and views of others. If I have at all succeeded in conveying to the reader a just view of his character, it must have been already made clear, that he was a man in whom strong passions and great powers of mind, had been bowed down by the influence of the peculiar religious doctrines of the church to which he belonged--doctrines false and evil it is true--principles, which, in many instances besides his own, prostituted the highest qualities and most brilliant talents, to the support of an institution, raised upon error, cemented by falsehood, covered over with crime; but still his devotion had been sincere and strong. He had believed all that his church told him; he had given up thought and judgment to her; his own passions, desires, and feelings, had been fused into her purposes; and, if they ever were individually brought into action, it was in the course which she had fixed for them. But as I have said, a change had now come over him; the deep well of the heart's strongest emotions had been opened; the stream had gushed forth in a torrent; and many of the delusions which had encumbered the way of his understanding had been swept away. Many but not all. The stern attachment to the church of Rome, and the blind submission to all her dogmas, which had taught him to believe that those who attempted to try her doctrines even by the words of Christ himself, were worthy of nought but persecution and punishment, had been brought into contest with his love for her on whom all his tenderest affections had centred--for her whom he had looked upon from infancy as his child; and they had given way. He felt that he had been led wrong; he had learned, that ambition and the love of domination were part of the creed of Rome, and that, in obeying her fiery dictates, he had supported with his whole strength, the wicked and the base, against the good and noble.--He had learned it by his own sorrows; and, although perhaps he had in some degree perceived it before, and had believed that it was only justifiable to do so, for the great object of the defence of the church, the anguish of his heart now made him comprehend that the dreadful dogma, "the end justifies the means," is always false, and that there is no truth but in the Apostle's own words, "thou shalt not do evil that good may come of it."