From the newspapers and letters that reach me I learn how widely this report has won credence; and I fall into a painful embarrassment when I think of the sincere, loving joy which is so touchingly expressed in some of these epistles. Travellers tell me that the salvation of my soul has even furnished a theme for pulpit eloquence. Young Catholic priests seek permission to dedicate to me the first fruits of their pen. I am regarded as a shining light--that is to be--of the Church. This pious folly is so well meant and sincere that I cannot laugh at it. Whatever may be said of the zealots of Catholicism, one thing is certain: they are no egotists; they take a warm interest in their fellow-men--alas! often a little too warm an interest. I cannot ascribe that false report to malice, but only to mistake. The innocent facts were in this case surely distorted by accident only. The statement of time and place is quite correct. I was really in the designated church on the designated day, and I did there undergo a religious ceremony; but this ceremony was no hateful abjuration, but a very innocent conjugation. In short, after being married according to the civil law, I also invoked the sanction of the Church, because my wife, who is a strict Catholic, would not have considered herself properly married in the eyes of God without such a ceremony; and for no consideration would I shake this dear being's belief in the religion which she has inherited. It is well, moreover, that women should have a positive religion. Whether there is more fidelity among wives of the evangelic faith, I shall not attempt to discuss. But the Catholicism of the wife certainly saves the husband from many annoyances. When Catholic women have committed a fault, they do not secretly brood over it, but confess to the priest, and as soon as they have received absolution they are again as merry and light-hearted as before. This is much pleasanter than spoiling the husband's good spirits or his soup by downcast looks or grieving over a sin for which they hold themselves in duty bound to atone during their whole lives by shrewish prudery and quarrelsome excess of virtue. The confessional is likewise useful in another respect. The sinner does not keep her terrible secret preying on her mind; and since women are sure, sooner or later, to babble all they know, it is better that they should confide certain matters to their confessor than that they should, in some moment of overpowering tenderness, talkativeness, or remorse, blurt out to the poor husband the fatal confession.