‘Oh, you little heretic!’ said Frederick, laughing, ‘what would they have done to you a few centuries ago if you had been overheard uttering such blasphemies! You would have been condemned to be burnt at the stake!’ ‘Should I?’ retorted Rhoda. ‘Well, I should not think much of a religion that could do that!’ ‘They both did it,’ replied Frederick, ‘the Protestants as well as the Catholics! Everyone who differed from them in opinion, had to pay the penalty of their rashness.’ ‘Then I shouldn’t have thought much of either of them,’ said the girl. ‘Fred! religion was meant to bring us nearer God, not farther from Him. The Church is not God, the priests are not God, the Bible, prayer--all these--are only so many helps to bring us nearer Him. Why think about what _they_ will say then. Think only what God will say, and He speaks to you through your own conscience, and not through your fellow-men.’ ‘Rhoda, you astound me,’ exclaimed her companion; ‘where have you learned all this wisdom? You used not to talk to me like this when we knew each other before. Who has taught you so much? With whom have you been associating?’ The girl looked down and reddened. ‘With no one but myself,’ she answered gently. ‘I have been very much alone. You see, I have been too much ashamed to go amongst the other girls. But I think I have learned a great deal from my little baby. He came, you know, Fred, when I was so very unhappy and despairing, and he seemed like a little messenger of God to me, so sweet and innocent and sinless, and yet, all mine, who was so wicked and ungrateful and repining. I suppose I ought to have been very much ashamed of him, but I never was. He seemed to say to me, when he looked up in my face and smiled, whilst I was weeping over him: “Yes, you have been very wicked, and you are very unhappy, but here I am, you see, sent straight from God to comfort you. And, if you will be good for the future, He will let me stay to make up to you for all you have lost.” It was silly of me, wasn’t it? to fancy such things, but they comforted me, and so I go on fancying them, even to this day. And baby has seemed to make me think of God and bring me nearer to Him than I have ever been before. And oh! Fred,’ she continued, bursting out into a sudden enthusiasm, which she had never permitted herself to exhibit before, ‘he is such a darling little creature, you can’t think, so fat and strong, and he can toddle all over the place by himself. He was fourteen months old yesterday. But I forgot,’ said Rhoda, suddenly checking herself; ‘I oughtn’t to mention him to you now. It will hurt you to remember it. Please forgive me, Fred. I should not have done it. It was a mistake.’ She looked at him, and, to her pity and surprise, saw that tears were standing in his eyes.