“In that you will not.”
Blanche felt stung; and she spoke out now, with one of those bursts of confidence which came from her now and then.
“That is sooth, Master. I will not. I have not committed such sins as have many men and women. I ne’er stole, nor murdered, nor used profane swearing, nor worshipped idols, nor did many another ill matter: and I cannot believe but that God shall be more merciful to such than to the evil fawtors (factors, doers) that be in the world. Where were His justice, if no?”
“Mistress Blanche, you wit neither what is God, neither what is sin. The pure and holy law of God is like to a golden ring. You account, that because you have not broken it on this side, nor on that side, you have not broken it at all. But if you break it on any side, it is broken; and you it is that have broken it.”
“Wherein have I broken it?” she asked defiantly.
“‘All unrighteousness is sin.’ Have you alway done rightly, all your life long? If not, then you are a sinner.”
“Oh, of course, we be all sinners,” said Blanche, as if that were a very slight admission.
“Good. And a sinner is a condemned criminal. He is not come into this world to see if he may perchance do well, and stand: he is already fallen; he is already under condemnation of law.”
“Then ’tis even as I said,—there is no fault in any of us,” maintained Blanche, sturdily clinging to her point.
“‘This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’”