“But they pray!”
“They praise, and they hold communion: I know not whether they offer petitions 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 pass that—grant, for our talk’s sake, that they have knowledge of what passeth 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 petitions 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, God.”
“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 God, and after Him mine only hope, pray for me, and guard me during this night’—‘Give me power to fight against thine enemies’—‘Great God, 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?”