"Ay so, my maid? Or is it rather to trust our own fantasy of what Christ would say?"

Blanche was silent for a moment; then she answered,--"But He did say, 'This is My body.'"

"Will you go further, an' it like you?"

"How, Master Tremayne?"

"'This is My body, which is broken for you.' Was the bread that He held in His hand the body that was broken? Did that morsel of bread take away the sin of the world? Look you, right in so far as the bread was the body, in so far also was the breaking of that bread the death of that body,--and no further. Now, Mistress Blanche, was the breaking of the bread the death of the body? Think thereon, and answer me."

"It was an emblem or representation thereof, no doubt," she said slowly.

"Good. Then, inasmuch as the breaking did set forth the death, in so much did the bread set forth the body. If the one be an emblem, so must be the other."

"That may be, perchance," said Blanche, sheering off from the subject, as she found it pa.s.sing beyond her, and requiring the troublesome effort of thought: "but, Master Tremayne, there is one other matter whereon the speech of you Gospellers verily offendeth me no little."

"Pray you, tell me what it is, Mistress Blanche."

"It is the little honour, or I might well say the dishonour, that you do put upon Saint Mary the blessed Virgin. Surely, of all that He knew and loved on this earth, she must have been the dearest unto our Lord. Why then thus scrimp and scant the reverence due unto her? Verily, in this matter, the Papists do more meetly than you."

"'More meetly'--wherewith, Mistress Blanche? With the truth of Holy Scripture, or with the fantasies of human nature?"

"I would say," repeated Blanche rather warmly, "that her honour must be very dear to her blessed Son."

"There is one honour ten thousand-fold dearer unto His heart, my maid, and that is the honour of G.o.d His eternal Father. All honour, that toucheth not this, I am ready to pay to her. But tell me wherefore you think she must be His dearest?"

"Because it must needs be thus," replied illogical Blanche.

"I would ask you to remember, Mistress Blanche, that He hath told us the clean contrary."

Blanche looked up with an astonished expression.

"'Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.' Equally honourable, equally dear, with that mother of His flesh whom you would fain upraise above all other women. And I am likewise disposed to think that word of Paul,--'Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more'--I say, I am disposed to think this may have his reverse side. Though He hath known us after the flesh, yet thus, now that He is exalted to the right hand of G.o.d, He knoweth us no more. And if so, then Mary is now unto Him but one of a mult.i.tude of saved souls, all equally fair and dear and precious in the eyes of Him that died for them."

"O Master Tremayne!"

"What would you say, Mistress Blanche?"

"That is truly--it sounds so cold!" said Blanche, disparagingly.

"Doth it so?" asked the Rector, smiling. "Cold, that all should be beloved of His heart? Dear maid, 'tis not that He loveth her the less, but that He loveth the other more."

As Blanche made no response, Mr Tremayne went on.

"There is another side to this matter, Mistress Blanche, that I daresay you have ne'er looked upon: and it toucheth at once the matter of images, and the reverence due unto Saint Mary. Know you that great part of the images held in worship for her by the Papists, be no images of her at all? All the most ancient--and many be very ancient--were ne'er made for Mary. The marvel-working black Virgins--our Lady of Einsiedeln, our Lady of Loretto, and all such--be in very truth old idols, of a certain Tuscan or Etruscan G.o.ddess, elder than the days of the Romans. [Note 3.] Again, all they that are of fair complexion--such as have grey eyes [blue eyes were then called grey] and yellow hair-- these be not Mary the Jewess. We can cast no doubt she was dark.

Whence then come all these fair-complexioned pictures? We might take it, in all likelihood, from the fancy of the painters, that did account a fair woman to be of better favour than a dark. But search you into past history, and you shall find it not thus. These fair-favoured pictures be all of another than Mary; to wit, of that ancient G.o.ddess, in her original of the Babylonians, that was worshipped under divers names all over the world,--in Egypt as Isis; in Greece, as Athene, Artemis, and Aphrodite; in Rome as Juno, Diana, and Venus: truly, every G.o.ddess was but a diversity of this one. [Note 4.] These, then, be no pictures of the Maid of Nazareth. And 'tis the like of other images,-- they be christened idols. The famed Saint Peter, in his church at Rome is but a christened Jupiter. Wit you how Paganism was got rid of? It was by receiving of it into the very bosom of the Roman Church. The ceremonies of the Pagans were but turned,--from Ceres, Cybele, Isis, or Aphrodite, unto Mary--from Apollo, Bacchus, Osiris, Tammuz, unto Christ.

Thus, when these Pagans found that they did in very deed worship the same G.o.d, and with the same observances, as of old--for the change was in nothing save the name only--they became Christians by handfuls;--yea, by cityfuls. What marvel, I pray you? But how shall we call this Church of Rome, that thus bewrayed her trust, and sold her Lord again like Judas? An idolatrous Christianity--nay, rather a baptised idolatry! G.o.d hath writ her name, Mistress Blanche, on the last page of His Word; and it is, Babylon, Mother of all Abominations."

"I do marvel, Master Tremayne," said Blanche a little indignantly, though in a constrained voice, "how you dare bring such ill charges against the Papistical Church. Do they not set great store by holiness, I pray you? Yea, have they not monks and nuns, and a celibate priesthood, consecrate to greater holiness than other? How can you charge them with wickedness and abomination?"

"Poor child!" murmured the Rector, as if to himself,--"she little wist what manner of life idolaters term holiness! Mistress Blanche, yonder cloak of professed holiness hideth worser matter than you can so much as think on. 'Tis not I that set that name on the Papistical Church. It was G.o.d Himself. Will you tell me, moreover, an' it like you,--What is holiness?"

"Goodness--right-doing."

"Those be unclear words, methinks. They may mean well-nigh aught. For me, I would say, Holiness is walking with G.o.d, and according to the will of G.o.d."

"Well! Is not G.o.d pleased with the doing of good?"

"G.o.d is pleased with nothing but Christ. He is not pleased with you because of your deeds. He must first accept _you_, and that not for any your deserving, but for the sake of the alone merits of His Son; and then He shall be pleased with your deeds, since they shall be such as His Spirit shall work in you. But nothing can please G.o.d except that which cometh from G.o.d. Your works, apart from Him, be dead works. And you cannot serve the living G.o.d with dead works."

Blanche's half-unconscious shrug of the shoulders conveyed the information that this doctrine was not agreeable to her.

"Surely G.o.d will be pleased with us if we do out best!" she muttered.

"By no means," said Mr Tremayne quietly. "Your best is not good enough for G.o.d. He likeneth that best of yours to filthy rags. What should you say to one that brought you a present of filthy rags, so foul that you could not so much as touch them?"

Blanche, who was extremely dainty as to what she touched, quite appreciated this simile. She found an answer, nevertheless.

"G.o.d is merciful, Mr Tremayne. You picture Him as hard and unpitiful."

"Verily, Mistress Blanche, G.o.d is merciful: more than you nor I may conceive. But G.o.d hath no mercies outside of Christ. Come to Him bringing aught in your hand save Christ, and He hath nought to say to you. And be you ware that you cannot come and bring nothing. If you bring not Christ, a.s.suredly you shall bring somewhat else,--your own works, or your own sufferings, or in some manner your own deservings.

And for him that cometh with his own demerits in hand, G.o.d hath nought saving the one thing he hath indeed demerited,--which is--h.e.l.l."

Mr Tremayne spoke so solemnly that Blanche felt awed. But she did not relish the doctrine which he preached any better on that account.

"How have I demerited that?" she asked.

"G.o.d Himself shall answer you. 'He that hath not the Son of G.o.d hath not life.' 'He that believeth not is condemned already.'"

"But I do believe--all Christians believe!" urged Blanche.

"What believe you?"

"I believe unfeignedly all that the creed saith touching our Lord."

"And I believe as unfeignedly all that the Commentaries of Caesar say touching that same Julius Caesar."

"What mean you, Master Tremayne?"

"What did Julius Caesar for me, Mistress Blanche?"

"Marry, nought at all," said Blanche, laughing, "without his invading of England should have procured unto us some civility which else we had lacked."

Civility, at that time, meant civilisation. When, according to the wondrous dreamer of Bedford Gaol, Mr Worldly Wiseman referred Christian, if he should not find Mr Legality at home, to the pretty young man called Civility, whom he had to his son, and who could take off a burden as well as the old gentleman himself,--he meant, not what we call civility, but what we call civilisation. That pretty young man is at present the most popular physician of the day; and he still goes to the town of Morality to church. The road to his house is crowded more than ever, though the warning has been standing for two hundred years, that "notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite,"--as well as another warning far older,--"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." [Job twenty-eight verse 28.]

"But now," said the Rector, with an answering smile, "tell me, what did Jesus Christ for me?"

"He is the Saviour," she said in a low voice.

"Of whom, dear maid?"