“Surely, our Lady is Christian woman!” responded Amphillis, in a rather astonished tone.
“What signifiest thereby?”
“Why she that doth right heartily believe Christ our Lord to have been born and died, and risen again, and so forth.”
“What good should that do her?”
Amphillis stared, without answering.
“If that belief were very heartfelt, it should be life and comfort; but meseemeth thy manner of belief is not heartfelt, but headful. To believe that a man lived and died, Phyllis, is not to accept his help, and to affy thee in his trustworthiness. Did it ever any good and pleasure to thee to believe that one Julius Caesar lived over a thousand years ago?”
“No, verily; but—” Amphillis did not like to say what she was thinking, that no appropriation of good, nor sensation of pleasure, had ever yet mingled with that belief in the facts concerning Jesus Christ on which she vaguely relied for salvation. She thought a moment, and then spoke out. “Mistress, did you mean there was some other fashion of believing than to think certainly that our Lord did live and die?”
“Set in case, Phyllis, that thou shouldst hear man to say, ‘I believe in Master Godfrey, but not in Master Matthew,’ what shouldst reckon him to signify? Think on it.”
“I suppose,” said Amphillis, after a moment’s pause for consideration, “I should account him to mean that he held Master Godfrey for a true man, in whom man might safely affy him; but that he felt not thus sure of Master Matthew.”
“Thou wouldst not reckon, then, that he counted Master Matthew as a fabled man that was not alive?”