“Then wherefore not speak thy lack straightway?”
Maude was silent, but not because she was stupid.
“My maid, what saith the Credo? When thus thou prayest, dost thou aught save look up to Heaven, and say, ‘God, I believe in Thee’? So far as it goeth, good. But seest not that an’ thou shouldst say to me, ‘Madam, I crede and trust you,’ thou shouldst have asked nought from me—have neither confessed need, ne presented petition? The Credo is matter said to men—not to God. Were it not better to say, ‘Lord, I love Thee?’ Or best of all, ‘Lord, love Thou me?’”
“I wis, Madam, that our Lord loveth the saints,” said Maude in a low voice.
She felt very much in the condition graphically described by John Bunyan as “tumbled up and down in one’s mind.”
“Ah, child!” was the Countess’s answer, “they be lost sheep whom Christ seeketh. And whoso Christ setteth out to seek shall, sooner or later, find the way to Him.”
Note 1. Harl. Ms. 4016, folios 1, 2.
Note 2. The “Holy Grail” was one of the most singular of Romish superstitions. A glass vessel, supported by a foot, was shown to the people as the cup in which Christ gave the wine to His disciples at the Last Supper; and they were taught, not only that Joseph of Arimathea had caught the blood from His side in the same vessel, but that he and Mary Magdalene, sailing on Joseph’s shirt, had brought over the relic from Palestine to Glastonbury. “The Quest of the Saint Graal” was the highest achievement of the Knights of the Round Table.