“Nay, surely!” said Amphillis, laughing.
“Then seest not for thyself that there is a manner of belief far beside and beyond the mere reckoning that man liveth? Phyllis, dost thou trust Christ our Lord?”
“For what, Mistress? That He shall make me safe at last, if I do my duty, and pay my dues to the Church, and shrive me (confess sins to a priest) metely oft, and so forth? Ay, I reckon I do,” said Amphillis, in a tone which sounded rather as if she meant “I don’t.”
“Hast alway done thy duty, Amphillis?”
“Alack, no, Mistress. Yet meseemeth there be worser folks than I. I am alway regular at shrift.”
“The which shrift thou shouldst little need, if thou hadst never failed in duty. But how shall our Lord make thee safe?”
“Why, forgive me my sins,” replied Amphillis, looking puzzled.
“That saith what He shall do, not how He shall do it. Thy sins are a debt to God’s law and righteousness. Canst thou pay a debt without cost?”
“But forgiveness costs nought.”
“Doth it so? I think scarce anything costs more. Hast ever meditated, Amphillis, what it cost God to forgive sin?”