A PRIEST ON RELIGION. 485

ism to the Christian religion; but how does this comfort you,
while these people are in your account out of the pale of the
Catholic Church, without which you believe there is no salvation ;
so that you esteem these but heretics, and for other reasons, as
effectually lost as the pagans themselves.

To this he answered with abundance of candour and Christian
charity thus: “Sir, I am a Catholic of the Roman Church, and
a priest of the Order of St. Benedict, and I embrace all the
principles of the Roman faith; but yet, if you will believe me, and
that I do not speak in compliment to you, or in respéct to my cir-
cumstances and your civilities; I say, nevertheless, I do not look
upon you who call yourselves Reformed without some charity. I
dare not say, though I know it is our opinion in general ; I say, I
dare not say that you cannot be saved. I will by no means limit
the mercy of Christ so far as to think that he cannot receive you
into the bosom of his Church in a manner to us unperceivable, and
which it is impossible for us to know; and I hope you have the
same charity for us. I pray daily for your being all restored to
Christ’s Church, by whatsoever methods he, who is all-wise, is
pleased to direct. In the meantime, sure you will allow it to
consist with me, as a Roman, to distinguish far between a Pro-
testant and a pagan; between one that calls on Jesus Christ,
though in a way which I do not think is according to the true
faith, and a savage, a barbarian, that knows no God, no Christ, no
Redeemer; and if you are not within the pale of the Catholic
Church, we hope you are nearer being restored to it than those
that know nothing of God or his Church. And I rejoice, therefore,
when I see this poor man, whom you say has been a profligate and
almost a murderer, kneel down and pray to Jesus Christ, as we
suppose he did, though not fully enlightened, believing that God,
from whom every such work proceeds, will sensibly touch his
heart, and bring him to the further knowledge of that truth in his
own time; and if God shall influence this poor man to convert and
instruct the poor ignorant savage his wife, I can never believe that
he shall be cast away himself. And have I not reason then to
rejoice the nearer any are brought to the knowledge of Christ,
though they may not be brought quite home into the bosom of the