“Who was he?”
“Why, he was one of the saints, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know. There’s no mention of him in my book.”
David looked like a man stopped unexpectedly in rapid career. “You always want to know so much about every thing!” he said, rubbing his face on his sleeve, as he had a habit of doing when puzzled. “Now I never thought to ask that.”
“But before I can act on a message from my superior, I must surely satisfy myself as to the credentials of the messenger. However, let us hear the message. Perhaps that may tell us something. Some things bear on their faces the evidence of what they are—still more of what they are not.”
“Well, what he read was this: ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ And ‘Look you,’ saith he, ‘there isn’t a word here of any body else.’ ‘If thou shalt confess’ Him—not the saints, nor the images, nor the Church, nor the priest. ‘Baptism,’ saith he, ‘is confessing Him.’ Then he turned over some leaves, and read a bit from another place, how our Lord said, ‘Come unto Me, all ye—’”
Countess’s eyes lighted up suddenly. “That’s in my book. ‘All ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.’”
“That’s it. And says he, ‘He does not say, “Come to the Church or the priest,” but “Come to Me.”’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘but how can you do one without the other?’ ‘You may come to the priest easy enough, and never come to Christ,’ saith he, ‘so it’s like to be as easy to come to Christ without the priest.’ ‘Well, but,’ says I, ‘priests doesn’t say so.’ ‘No,’ says he; ‘they don’t’—quite short like. ‘But for all I can see in this book,’ says he, ‘He does.’”
“Go on!” said Countess eagerly, when David paused.
“Well, then—I hope you’ll excuse me if I said more than I should—says I to him, ‘Now look here, Father: suppose you had somebody coming to you for advice, that had been a Jew like me, and was ready to believe in our Lord, but could not put up with images and such, would you turn him away because he could not believe enough, or would you baptise him?’ ‘I would baptise him,’ saith he. Then he turns over the book again, and reads: ‘“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” That is what the Apostles said to one man,’ says he: ‘and if it was enough then, it is enough now.’ ‘But, Father,’ says I, ‘that sounds rather as if you thought the Church might go wrong, or had gone wrong, in putting all these things beside our Lord.’ ‘My son,’ saith he, ‘what meanest thou by the Church? The Holy Ghost cannot teach error. Men in the Church may go wrong, and are continually wandering into error. What said our Lord to the rulers of the Jews, who were the priests of His day? “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures.” This book is truth: when men leave this book,’ saith he, ‘they go astray.’ ‘But not holy Church?’ said I. ‘Ah,’ saith he, ‘the elect may stray from the fold; how much more they that are strangers there? The only safe place for any one of us,’ he says, ‘is to keep close to the side of the Good Shepherd.’”