"Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many
arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it. That she
had."

"She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst
not look at, you know, Knicks."

"I know better, Van. Don't you talk so. I have got the very Bible she
used and read every day--a great large one, printed in London. Mother
was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father
was Dutch."

"Why, I never knowed that, Knicks. That was a great misfortune. These
priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so,
that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction."

"Well, sir," said Knicks, "I can tell you I never met a Christian but my
mother; and I cannot believe or listen to you say she went to
destruction, but to heaven, if there is such a place. And again: if I
were to embrace any religion, it would be the Roman Catholic religion;
for it is the only _honest religion_ there is. Father often brought
Methodist and Presbyterian ministers to make mother give up her'n; but
it was no go. She always treated them civil; but they had the worst of
the argument, I can tell you. They brought their Bibles, and she her'n;
and then they would set to, and be at it, till at last they were obliged
to give up. The only difference between her Bible and theirs is, that
her'n contained some fourteen or fifteen books more than the Protestant
Bible. The end of it was, that father turned with mother, and had the
Irish priest O'Shane to attent him afore he died. Mother got us all
baptized too."