He had of late had several conferences with Henderson on the
subject of religion, and had given him to understand that he stood in
need of his instructions, although he had not thought there was either
prudence or necessity for confessing that hitherto he had held the
tenets of the Church of Rome.
Elias Henderson, a keen propagator of the reformed faith, had sought
the seclusion of Lochleven Castle, with the express purpose and
expectation of making converts from Rome amongst the domestics of the
dethroned Queen, and confirming the faith of those who already held
the Protestant doctrines. Perhaps his hopes soared a little higher,
and he might nourish some expectation of a proselyte more
distinguished in the person of the deposed Queen. But the pertinacity
with which she and her female attendants refused to see or listen to
him, rendered such hope, if he nourished it, altogether abortive.
The opportunity, therefore, of enlarging the religious information of
Roland Graeme, and bringing him to a more due sense of his duties to
Heaven, was hailed by the good man as a door opened by Providence for
the salvation of a sinner. He dreamed not, indeed, that he was
converting a Papist, but such was the ignorance which Roland displayed
upon some material points of the reformed doctrine, that Master
Henderson, while praising his docility to the Lady Lochleven and her
grandson, seldom failed to add, that his venerable brother, Henry
Warden, must be now decayed in strength and in mind, since he found a
catechumen of his flock so ill-grounded in the principles of his
belief.
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