Loveday's history

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Whereat she laughed, and answered that "it was a good place to be of a Sunday," adding more seriously: "But I see how it is, and right glad am I to see you so well employed. Only remember this, chick: the Scripture is not made to be read for diversion, like a Canterbury tale, or even like any other good book. 'Tis the Lord's own word sent down for the comfort of us poor sinners, and to guide us to that Home which He hath prepared for them that love Him; and as such, we must study it with reverence and ask for the enlightenment of the Spirit to be shed on its pages."

This was a new idea to me, and I closed the volume for that time with a strange bewilderment of ideas. I could not sleep for thinking of it, and the more I thought, the more bewildered I became. Here was a history of the first age of the church under the apostles themselves, and yet not a word said about the worship of the Holy Mother, the adoration of saints, the sacrifice of the mass, and many other things which I had been led to consider essential to salvation.

"But perhaps they are in the Epistles and Gospels," I thought, "only it is very strange that no more should be said about the Holy Mother after the first chapter, and that then she should only be spoken of in the same way as the other women."

But when I came to read the Gospels it was surprise piled upon surprise. At first it was sheer enjoyment. How lovely were those narratives into which I threw myself with an earnestness which made me forget every thing else for the time being. How real to me were the gatherings to hear the word, the feeding of the multitudes, the sower who went forth to sow, the laborers waiting to be hired and grumbling over their pay, not because they had not enough, but because some one else had as much.

But by degrees other thoughts occupied my mind and heart. I began to compare myself with the full requirements of God's holy law. I stood for the first time face to face with that awful spirit whom men call Conviction of Sin. I was shown that I was condemned under the law, and unless some way of escape were provided, there was nothing before me but destruction—nay, that I was condemned already.

My first thought was to reform myself; but it seemed to me that the more I tried the worse I grew. I am sure I never in all my life gave way so far to temper and fretfulness (always my besetting sins) as at that time. Looking back at those days I can not but wonder at the wise and tender patience of Master and Mistress Davis toward me. As for Philippa, I don't think I am uncharitable when I say that she openly exulted over every outburst. But I don't mean to speak of her more than I can help it. She was, indeed, one of those thorns in the side which seem to have no other use than to try the patience of those who are affected by them, and which only rankle the more the more they are plucked at.

Thus was I shut up under the law, and that which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. It was Margaret Hall who led me out of this prison into the light and life of heaven. She had me to stay with her under pretext of having my help in correcting the press, which I had learned to do with tolerable dexterity. She was one of those blessed saints whose very presence is comfort though they do not speak. By degrees she won from me the secret of my trouble, and then taking my hand, as it were, she led me to the fountain opened for sin, and showed me that spring of living water which has never failed me since, though, woe is me, I have many a time choked its overflow, and turned from it to those broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Oh, what a load she took from my mind. I was, as I suppose a man might be who had worn fetters ever since he could remember, and though dimly conscious of them, did not fully know their weight and hinderance till they were struck off. It was as a new creature that I came back to Master Davis's friendly roof.

But those were trying times—in some respects more trying even than the more bloody days that came under Queen Mary. Then, at least, one knew what to expect. The king was growing more and more infirm and capricious all the time, and worked changes in church and state till it took a good head to know what was heresy and treason and what was not.

Already my Lord Cromwell had been filled with the fruit of his own devices, and now, within six short months after he had been created Earl of Essex (that title which hath proved almost as unlucky to its possessor as the famous horse Sejanus), he lay in the Tower, attainted of treason, and waiting for the very block and as to which he himself had sent so many. His real offense lay in purveying to the king a wife who did not please him—the Lady Anne of Cleves, already divorced and living in her own house, treated by the king as his sister, happy in her endless tapestry work and in munching the suckets and comfits her Flemish ladies-in-waiting purveyed for her. She was not one to take any thing very much to heart which did not interfere with her bodily comfort. The king had already turned his dangerous fancy toward the ill-fated Katherine Howard, but I don't believe the Lady Anne felt one pang of jealousy thereat. She was, with all reverence, like a gentle, fat cow, perfectly content so long as she had food and drink, and the flies were not too troublesome.