“They are images of the blessed saints.”
“What are they for?” demanded Countess, knitting her brows.
“The priest says they are to remind us, and are helps to prayer.”
“To whose prayers?” said Countess disdainfully. “No woman in England prays more regularly than I; but I never wanted such rubbish as that to help me.”
“Oh, they don’t help me,” said David. “I never pay any attention to them; I just pray straight up.”
“I don’t understand praying to God in the House of Baal. ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.’”
“But they say the Church has loosed that command now. And of course we can’t set ourselves up above the Church.”
“What on earth do you mean? Art thou God, to kill and to make alive, that thou shouldst style the keeping of His command ‘setting one’s self above the Church?’ The Church shall never guide me, if she speak contrary to God.”
“But how can she, when God inspires her?”
“There is another question I want settled first. How can I believe that God inspires her, when I see that she contradicts His distinct commands?”