“But what about, marry?”
“Gramercy! wherefore I came not to mass, and why Master didn’t: and what I believed and didn’t believe, and wherefore I did this and didn’t do that, till I warrant you, afore he left off, I was that moithered I couldn’t have told what I did believe. I got so muggy I only knew one thing under the sun, and that was that I’d have given my best gown for to be rid of him.”
“Well, you got free without your best gown, Margaret,” said Rose.
“May be I have, but I feel as if I’d left all my wits behind me in the lane, or mayhap in the priest’s pocket. Whatever would the man be at? We pay our dues to the Church, and we’re honest, peaceable folks: if it serve us better to read our Bible at home rather than go look at him hocus-pocussing in the church, can’t he let us be? Truly, if he’d give us something when we came, there’d be some reason for finding fault; nobody need beg me to go to church when there’s sermon: but what earthly good can it do any mortal man to stare at a yellow cross on Father Tye’s back? And what good do you ever get beyond it?”
Sermons have always been a Protestant institution, in this sense, that the more pure and Scriptural the Church has been, the more sermons there have generally been, while whenever the clergy have taken up with foolish ceremonies and have departed from the Bible, they have tried to do away with preaching. And of course, when very few people could read their Bibles, there was more need of preaching than there is now, when nearly everybody can read. Very, very few poor people could read a word in 1556. It was put down as something remarkable, in the case of Cissy’s father, that he could “read a little.” Saint Paul says that it pleased God by preaching to save them that believe (1 Corinthians one 21), but he never says “by hearing music,” or “by looking at flowers, or candles, or embroidered crosses.” Those things can only amuse our eyes and ears; they will never do our souls any good. How can they? The only thing that will do good to our souls is to get to know God better: and flowers, candles, music, and embroidery, cannot teach us anything about God.
“What laugh you at, Rose?” asked Elizabeth.
“Only Margaret’s notion that it could do no man good to stare at the cross on Father Tye’s back,” said Rose, trying to recover her gravity.
“Well, the only animal made with a cross on his back is an ass,” said Margaret; “and one would think a man should be better than an ass; but if his chief business be to make himself look like one, I don’t see that he is so much better.”
This amused Rose exceedingly. Elizabeth Foulkes, though the same age as Rose, was naturally of a graver turn of mind, and she only smiled.
“Well! if I haven’t forgot all I was charged with, I’d better give my message,” said Margaret; “but Father Tye’s well-nigh shook all my wits out of my head. Robin Purcas came by this morrow, and he lifted the latch, and gave me a word from Master Benold, that I was to carry on—for he’s got a job of work at Saint Osyth, and won’t be back while Friday—saith he, on Friday even, Master Pulleyne and the Scots priest, that were chaplains to my Lady of Suffolk, shall be at the King’s Head, and all of our doctrine that will come to hear shall be welcome. Will you go?”