Without another word the Black Friar descended from the desk, and passed along the nave to the western door with long, rapid strides. And Agnes went home with her heart full.
Full—with what strange and new thoughts! No masses, no penances, no confessions, no alms-givings, to be the means of reconciliation with God; but only Christ. And was it possible that the Friar meant one other thing which, he had not said—no intercession of saints? If Christ were so ready to receive and bless all who would come—if He were Himself the Mediator for man with God—could He need a mediator in His turn?
Yet if not, thought Agnes with a feeling of sudden terror as the supposition came to her, what became of the intercession of Mary? She who was held up as the Lady of Sorrows—just as Isis, and Cybele, and Hertha had been before her, but of that Agnes knew nothing—she who was pictured by the Church as the fountain of mercy and compassion—the maiden who could sympathise with the griefs of womanhood, the mother who had influence with, yea, authority over, the divine Son—what place did Friar Laurence find for her in his teaching? The mere imagination of a religion without Mary, was like the thought of chaos. Hitherto she had been the motive-power of all piety to Agnes Stone. A sermon without our Lady! It was shocking even to think of it.
Had Agnes been in the regular habit of attendance at Saint Paul’s Cross, she would have heard many such sermons during the reign of Edward the Sixth. But Mistress Winter’s disapprobation, combined with her own indifference, had been enough to keep her away, and the half-discourse of John Laurence at the Cross had been the only sermon she remembered to have heard during the five years of her residence with that delectable dame. Many thoughts, therefore, now familiar to the church-going public, were quite new to her.
If she could but once again come across Friar Laurence!
Chapter Five.
Agnes is asked a Question.
“Whate’er I say, whate’er I syng,
Whate’er I do, that hart shall se,
That I shall serue with hart lovyng
That lovyng hart that lovyth me.”