SATURDAY, JUNE 10. My boy Santiago has taken it into his head to get married; and being a Protestant, finds it extremely difficult to get through the ecclesiastical hopper. Were the person whom he wishes to wed of the same faith with himself, there would be but little impediment; but as she is a Roman Catholic, it is necessary that he should become one too. He has been to the presiding priest to see if he could not get his permission to retain a few articles of his own religion, just enough to save his conscience. But his reverence told him he must give it up in toto, renounce it as a heresy, and come without a scruple into the mother church. Iago is not much of a theologian, but has sense enough to know that conscientious scruples are not things of which a man can free himself at will. His love, none the less deep and sincere for his humble condition, urges him to a compliance with the canonical requirement, but these very scruples hold him back. How he will extricate himself I know not. He will probably compound the matter with his conscience by some mental reservations, as Galileo did when awed into the indignant confession that the earth was flat. Verily, if a man cannot marry in this world without becoming a hypocrite or apostate from the faith of his fathers, the sooner Miller’s conflagrating dream becomes a reality the better. Perhaps some shape of flame might emerge from its drifting embers, that would dare glimmer towards heaven without the leave of a pragmatic priest. I wonder if Adam asked Eve if she were a Roman Catholic before they celebrated their nuptials. This is an important question, and ought to be looked into, though now rather late in the day. I commend it to my venerable friend, the Bishop of New York, who has recently issued an edict that no Protestant shall marry a Roman Catholic without first passing his children, prospectively, through his baptismal font.