And yet even with all this I would have restrained myself from such attendance, knowing that it is an abhorrence unto you, had there been any other way open to me of hearing the Word of God or receiving the Blessed Sacrament.

But since King James has come to the throne, the penal laws have been more stringently enforced against our priests than in the latter days of the Queen.

What has been the result for us?
Verily that the priest who did from time to time minister to us is fled.

We are left without help, without guidance, without teaching, and this when the clouds of peril and trouble are like to darken more and more about our path." "And what of that, rash boy?
Would you think to lessen the peril by tampering with the things of the Evil One; by casting aside those rules and doctrines in which you both have been reared, and consorting with the subverters of the true faith ?" "But I cannot see that they are subverters of the faith," answered the youth hotly.

"That is where the kernel of the matter lies.