“How have I demerited that?” she asked.
“God Himself shall answer you. ‘He that hath not the Son of God 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.)