Clare Avery Part 28

He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies; And he that _will_ be cheated to the last, Delusions strong as h.e.l.l shall bind him fast."

_Cowper_.

"I did conceive, Mistress Blanche," said Mr Tremayne one morning, as the party rose from the breakfast-table, "that you would with a good will see the picture of Clare's grandsire, the which hangeth in my study-chamber?"

"Oh ay, an' it like you," responded Blanche eagerly.

Clare had seen the portrait, but not Blanche. Mr Tremayne led the way to his study, allowed her to examine the likeness at her leisure, and answered all her questions about John Avery. Entrapped Blanche did not realise that he was catching her with the same sort of guile which Saint Paul used towards the Corinthians. [2 Corinthians 12, 16] Mrs Tremayne came in, and sat down quietly with her work, before the inspection was over. When her curiosity was at length satisfied, Blanche thanked Mr Tremayne, and would have left the room with a courtesy: but such was by no means the intention of her pastor.

"I have heard, say, Mistress Blanche," said he quietly, "that your mind hath been somewhat unsettled touching the difference, or the lack of difference, betwixt us and the Papists. If so be, pray you sit down, and give us leave to talk the same over."

Blanche felt caught at last. It must be Sir Thomas, of course, who had told the Rector, for there was no one else who could have done it. And it may be added, though Blanche did not know it, that her father had specially begged Mr Tremayne to examine into the matter, and to set Blanche right on any points whereon she might have gone wrong.

Thus brought to a stand and forced to action, it was Blanche's nature to behave after the manner of a mule in the same predicament, and to affect stronger contrary convictions than she really felt. It was true, she said rather bluntly: she did think there was very little, if any, difference between many doctrines held by the rival Churches.

"There is all the difference that is betwixt Heaven and earth," answered Mr Tremayne. "Nay, I had well-nigh said, betwixt Heaven and h.e.l.l: for I do believe the Devil to have been the perverter of truth with those corruptions that are in Papistry. But I pray you, of your gentleness, to tell me of one matter wherein, as you account, no difference lieth?"

With what power of intellect she had--which was not much--Blanche mentally ran over the list, and selected the item on which she thought Mr Tremayne would find least to say.

"It seemeth me you be too rude [harsh, severe] to charge the Papists with idolatry," she said. "They be no more idolaters than we."

"No be they? How so, I pray you?"

"Why, the images in their churches be but for the teaching of such as cannot read, nor do they any worship unto the image, but only unto him that is signified thereby. Moreover, they pray not unto the saints, as you would have it; they do but ask the saints' prayers for them. Surely I may ask my father to pray for me, and you would not say that I prayed unto him!"

"I pray you, pull bridle there, Mistress Blanche," said Mr Tremayne, smiling; "for you have raised already four weighty points, the which may not be expounded in a moment. I take them, an' it like you, not justly in your order, but rather in the order wherein they do affect each other. And first, under your good pleasure,--what is prayer?"

Blanche was about to reply at once, when it struck her that the question involved more than she supposed. She would have answered,--"Why, saying my prayers:" but the idea came to her, _Was_ that prayer? And she felt instinctively that, necessarily, it was not. She thought a moment, and then answered slowly;--

"I would say that it is to ask somewhat with full desire to obtain the same."

"Is that all?" replied Mr Tremayne.

Blanche thought so.

"Methinks there is more therein than so. For it implieth, beyond this, full belief that he whom you shall ask,--firstly, can hear you; secondly, is able to grant you; thirdly, is willing to grant you."

"Surely the saints be willing to pray for us!"

"How know you they can hear us?"

Blanche thought, and thought, and could find no reason for supposing it.

"Again, how know you they can grant us?"

"But they pray!"

"They praise, and they hold communion: I know not whether they offer pet.i.tions or no."

Blanche sat meditating.

"You see, therefore, there is no certainty on the first and most weighty of all these points. We know not that any saint can hear us. But pa.s.s that--grant, for our talk's sake, that they have knowledge of what pa.s.seth on earth, and can hear when we do speak to them. How then?

Here is Saint Mary, our Lord's mother, sitting in Heaven; and upon earth there be pet.i.tions a-coming up unto her, at one time, from Loretto in Italy, and from Nuremburg in Germany, and from Seville in Spain, and from Bruges in Flanders, and from Paris in France, and from Bideford in Devon, and from Kirkham in Lancashire. Mistress Blanche, if she can hear and make distinction betwixt all these at the self-same moment, then is she no woman like to you. Your brain should be mazed with the din, and spent with the labour. Invocation declareth omnipotency. And there is none almighty save One,--that is, G.o.d."

"But," urged Blanche, "the body may be one whither, and the spirit another. And Saint Mary is a spirit."

"Truly so. Yet the spirit can scantly be in ten places at one time--how much less a thousand?"

Blanche was silent.

"The next thing, I take it, is that they pray not unto the saints, but do ask the saints only to pray for them. If the saints hear them not, the one is as futile as the other. But I deny that they do not pray unto the saints."

Mr Tremayne went to his bookcase, and came back with a volume in his hand.

"Listen here, I pray you--'Blessed Virgin, Mother of G.o.d, and after Him mine only hope, pray for me, and guard me during this night'--'Give me power to fight against thine enemies'--'Great G.o.d, who by the resurrection of Thy Son Jesus Christ hast rejoiced the world, we pray Thee, grant that by His blessed mother the Virgin Mary we may obtain the bliss of eternal life'--'Make mine heart to burn with love for Jesus Christ,--make me to feel the death of Jesus Christ in mine heart,--cause to be given unto us the joys of Paradise--O Jesu! O Mary! cause me to be truly troubled for my sins.' These, Mistress Blanche, be from the book that is the Common Prayer of the Papistical Church: and all these words be spoken unto Mary. As you well see, I cast no doubt, they do ascribe unto her divinity. For none can effectually work upon man's heart--save the Holy Ghost only. None other can cause his heart to be 'truly troubled for sin;' none other can make his heart to burn. Now what think you of this, Mistress Blanche? Is it praying unto the saints, or no?"

What Blanche thought, she did not say; but if it could be guessed from the expression of her face, she was both shocked and astonished.

"Now come we to the third point: to wit, that images be as pictures for the teaching of such as have no learning. Methinks, Mistress Blanche, that G.o.d is like to be wiser than all men. There must needs have been many Israelites in the wilderness that had no learning: yet His command unto them, as unto us, is, 'Ye shall not make unto you _any_ graven image.' I take it that the small good that might thereby be done (supposing any such to be) should be utterly overborne of the companying evil. Moreover, when you do learn the vulgar, you would, I hope, learn them that which is true. Is it true, I pray you, that Mary was borne into Heaven of angels, like as Christ did Himself ascend?--or that being thus carried thither, she was crowned of G.o.d, as a queen? Dear maid, we have the Master's word touching all such, pourtrayments. 'The graven images of _their_ G.o.ds shall ye burn with fire.--Thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.'"

[Deuteronomy twelve, verses 25, 26.]

"O Mr Tremayne!" said Blanche, with a horrified look. "You would surely ne'er call a picture or an image of our Lord's own mother a thing accursed?"

"But I would, my maid," he answered very gravely, "that instant moment that there should be given thereunto the honour and worship and glory that be only due to Him. 'My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.' Nay, I would call an image of Christ Himself a thing accursed, if it stood in His place in the hearts of men.

Mark you, King Hezekiah utterly destroyed the serpent of bra.s.s that was G.o.d's own appointed likeness of Christ, that moment that the children of Israel did begin to burn incense unto it, thereby making it an idol."

"But in the Papistical Church they be no idols, Master Tremayne!"

interposed Blanche eagerly. "Therein lieth the difference betwixt Popery and Paganism."

"What should you say, Mistress Blanche, if you wist that therein lieth _no_ difference betwixt Popery and Paganism? The old Pagans were wont to say the same thing. [Note 1.] They should have laughed in your face if you had charged them with worshipping wood and stone, and have answered that they worshipped only the thing signified. So much is it thus, that amongst some Pagan nations, they do hold that their G.o.d cometh down in his proper person into the image for a season (like as the Papists into the wafer of the sacrament), and when they account him gone, they cast the image away as no more worth. Yet hark you how G.o.d Himself accounteth of this their worship. 'He maketh a G.o.d, even his graven image: he falleth down unto IT, and worshippeth IT, and prayeth unto IT, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my G.o.d.' And list also how He expoundeth the same:--'A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?' [Isaiah 44, verses 17, 20.] There should be little idolatry in this world if there were no deceived hearts."

Blanche twisted her handkerchief about, in the manner of a person who is determined not to be convinced, yet can find nothing to say in answer.

"Tell me, Mistress Blanche,--for I think too well of your good sense to doubt the same,--you cannot believe that Christ Himself is in a piece of bread?"

In her inmost heart she certainly believed no such thing. But it would never do to retreat from her position. In Blanche's eyes, disgrace lay not in being mistaken, but in being shown the mistake.

"Wherefore may it not be so?" she murmured. "'Tis matter of faith, in like manner as is our Lord's resurrection."

"In like manner? I cry you mercy. You believe the resurrection on the witness of them that knew it--that saw the sepulchre void; that saw Christ, and spake with Him, and did eat and drink with Him, and knew Him to be the very same Jesus that had died. You can bear no witness either way, for you were not there. But in this matter of the bread, here are you; and you see it for yourself not to be as you be told. Your eyes tell you that they behold bread; your hands tell you that they handle bread; your tongue tells you that it tasteth bread. The witness of your senses is in question: and these three do agree that the matter is bread only."

"The senses may be deceived, I reckon?"

"The senses may be deceived; and, as meseemeth, after two fashions: firstly, when the senses themselves be not in full healthfulness and vigour. Thus, if a man have some malady in his eyes, that he know himself to see things mistakenly, from the relation of other around him, then may he doubt what his eyes see with regard to this matter.

Secondly, a man must not lean on his senses touching matters that come not within the discerning of sense. Now in regard to this bread, the Papists do overreach themselves. Did they but tell us that the change made was mystical and of faith,--not within the discernment of sense--we might then find it harder work to deal withal, and we must seek unto the Word of G.o.d only, and not unto our sense in any wise. But they go farther: they tell us the change is such, that there is _no more the substance of bread left at all_. [Note 2.] This therefore is matter within the discerning of sense. If it be thus, then this change is needs one that I can see, can taste, can handle. I know, at my own table, whether I eat flesh or bread; how then should I be unable to know the same at the table of the Lord? Make it matter of sense, and I must needs submit it to the judgment of my senses. But now to take the other matter,--to wit, of faith. Christ said unto the Jews, 'The bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'

They took Him right as the Papists do. They 'strave among themselves, saying, How shall this man give us his flesh to eat?' Now mark you our Lord's answer. Doth He say, 'Ye do ill to question this matter; 'tis a mystery of the Church; try it not by sense, but believe?' Nay, He openeth the door somewhat wider, and letteth in another ray of light upon the signification of His words. He saith to them,--'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have _no life_ in you.' I pray you, what manner of life? Surely not the common life of nature, for that may be sustained by other food. The life, then, is a spiritual life; and how shall spiritual life be sustained by natural meat? The meat must be spiritual, if the life be so. Again He saith,--'He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.' Now, if the eating be after a literal manner, so also must be the dwelling. Our bodies, therefore, must be withinside the body of Christ in Heaven, and His body must be withinside every one of ours on earth. That this is impossible and ridiculous alike, I need not to tell you. Mistress Blanche, faith is not to believe whatsoever any shall tell you. It is less to believe a thing than to trust a man. And I can only trust a man on due testimony that he is worthy trust."

"But this is to trust Christ our Lord," said Blanche.