"If indeed the Lord spake to the Jews," Harrison went on, "did He not speak to us? Or was that also but a vain imagination, and did men fable when they wrote of the wonders done for the Jews, as they fabled concerning the Greeks and Romans?"
"I have heard my father and other clergymen of our English Church say they feared that some good men were apt to lean too much on the history of the Jews, as though we in England were their doubles, and bound by the same ordinances. He said he feared such reasonings, when they proved hollow, would make men run the other way and fall into unbelief. For he held that God hath His fashions of working, which differ for every nation, as one star differs from another in glory, and that He speaketh not to us in England by open signs, but for the most part, through our reason and our consciences."
Harrison rose with a groan and strode restlessly across the room.
"Ay," he answered, "your father is a wise man. But did not our reason and our consciences approve of that great work? Why then is it cast down and brought to nought, as though it were all folly and wickedness?"
She rose, and laid her hand on his arm; her eyes, too, were full of tears.
"Good brother, may it not be as in the days of the martyrs Mr. Fox tells of? I mind me of the words of Bishop Latimer concerning the flames that consumed him lighting a candle that should never be put out in England. Perhaps in this war you have set going a word of liberty that none may put to silence. Methinks, since the days of old Rome, there can have been no such talk of the government of the people by the people, as we have heard in these days, and as my father says, he beholds in very deed in New England. Mayhap, liberty is but departed across seas to renew her strength, and will come again to gather, not England only, but all the nations, under her wings."
Harrison turned and caught her hand. "In truth I were worse than a Jew did I not believe so fair a prophetess," he cried. "Yet——" he paused, and looked at her curiously, and a sudden impulse came on him to speak out all that was in his heart. "You seem very sure of it all?" he said.
Audrey blushed scarlet. She had grown up among people who were less outspoken on religious matters than the Puritans, and the young girl's feelings were locked in her own little holy of holies; but she was no coward.
"I doubt not I am often too sure of matters," she said. "My father was wont to say I had too much impatience to be a true philosopher; but on this I cannot but be sure."
All shyness was gone. She fixed her large eyes on him with the directness of a child.