Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/239

Rh de M—— spoke of the wealth of the Catholic doctrines, and again I listened willingly to the expression of her pure happiness, and wished to hear still more regarding certain of those doctrines, which had been so blessed to her. I consented therefore to see and to converse with the Prelate Monsignor L—— whom I afterwards found to be a man of much erudition, agreeable manners, and refinement, though on all important subjects we were but little agreed.

He, like all other Catholic prelates—Cardinal Wiseman of London amongst the rest—commenced with the supposition, that the unlearned—that is to say, people in general—cannot possibly understand the Holy Scripture, excepting through the intervention and interpretation of the church. In reply to this I told him of the peasants in the High Valleys of Switzerland, and amongst the Waldenses, of Père Ansermey, of Emanuel Isabel, of Edith Marmillon on her sick bed; of those congregations of unlearned mountaineers who without any teachers govern themselves by the light of the Holy Scriptures, and in so doing find their highest joy. Occasionally the concession would be extorted from the Catholic Monsignor, that “possibly the Protestant Christian might be saved, but—scarcely and with great pains.” Sometimes I would take the initiative and attack certain usages of the Catholic Church, which stand in open opposition to the custom and teaching of the apostolic church; for example, why has the Catholic Church abandoned the original institution of the holy communion of the bread and wine? Why do the Catholic priests retain the wine for themselves alone without allowing the laymen to have any part thereof?