"There is yet another thing," saith Joan, dropping her voice low. "Can
that be God's Church which contradicts God's Word? David saith `Over
all things Thou hast magnified Thy Name' [Note 2]: but I have heard of a
most wise man, that could read ancient volumes and dead tongues, that
Saint Hierome set not down the true words, namely, `Over all Thy Name
Thou hast magnified Thy Word.' Now, if this be so--if God hath set up
His Word over all His Name--the very highest part of Himself--how dare
any assemblage of men to gainsay it? What then of these indulgences and
licences to sin, which the Popes set forth? what of their suffering them
to wed whom God has forbidden, and forbidding it to priests to whom God
has suffered it? Surely this is the very thing which God points at,
`teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'"
"But, Joan," said I, "my dear heart, did not our Lord say, `Whatsoever
ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven?' Surely that
authorises the Church to do as she will."
"Contrary unto God's Word? It may give her leave to do her will within
the limits of the Word: I trow not contrary thereto. When the King
giveth plenipotentiary powers to his Keeper of the Great Seal, his own
deposing and superseding, I reckon, are not among them. `All things are
subject unto Christ,' saith Paul; `doubtless excepting Him which did
subject all things unto Him.' So, if God give power of loosing and
binding to His Church, it cannot be meant that she shall bind Himself
who thus endowed her, contrary to His own will and law."
I answered nought, again, for a little while. At last I said, "Joan,
there is a word that troubles me, and religious folks are always quoting
it. `If a man hate not his father and his mother'--and so forth--he
cannot be our Lord's disciple. I think I have heard it from one or
another every week since I came here. What say these new doctrine folks
that it means?"
"Ours are old doctrines, Mother dear," saith she; "as old as the
Apostles of Christ. What means it? Why, go forth to the end, and you
will see what it means: he is to hate his own soul also. Is he then to
kill himself, or to go wilfully into perdition? Nay, what can it mean,
but only that even these dearest and worthiest loves are to be set below
the worthier than them all, the love of the glory of God? That our Lord
never meant a religious person should neglect his father and mother, is
plainly to be seen by another word of His, wherein he rebukes the
priests of His day, because they taught that a man might bestow in
oblation to God what his father's or his mother's need demanded of him.
Here again, he reproves them, because they rejected the command of God
in order to keep their own tradition. You see, therefore, that when the
Church doth this, it is not ratified in Heaven."
"Then," said I, after a minute's thought, "I am not bidden to hate
myself, any more than my relations?"
"Why should we hate one whom God loveth?" she answered. "To hate our
selfishness is not to hate ourselves."
I sat a while silent, setting red eyes and golden claws to my green
wyvern, and Joan ran the white dots along her griffin's tail. When she
came to the fork of the tail, she laid down her brush.
"Mother," she saith--the dear grey eyes looking up into my face--"shall
we read together the holy Scripture, and beseech God to lead us into all
truth?"
"Dear child, we will do so," said I. "Joan, didst thou ever read in
holy Scripture that it was wicked to kiss folks?"
She smiled. "I have read there of one," saith she, "who stole up behind
the holiest of all men that ever breathed, and kissed His feet: and the
rebuke she won from Him was no more than this: `Her many sins are
forgiven her, and she loved much.' So, if a full sinful woman might
kiss Christ without rebuke, methinks, if it please you, Mother dear, you
might kiss me."
Well, I knew all my life of that woman, but I never thought of it that
way before, and it is marvellous comforting unto me.
My Lady sent this morning for all the Mothers together. Mine heart went
pitter-patter, as it always doth when I am summoned to her chamber. It
is only because of her office: for if she were no more than a common
Sister, I am sorely afraid I should reckon her a selfish, lazy woman:
but being Lady Prioress, I cannot presume to sit in judgment on my
superiors thus far. We found that she had sent for us to introduce us
to the new confessor, whose name is Father Mortimer, he is tall, and
good-looking (so far as I, a Sister, can understand what is thought to
be so in the world), and has dark, flashing eyes, which remind me of
Margaret's, and I should say also of that priest that once confessed us,
did I not feel certain that this is the same priest himself. He will
begin his duties this evening at compline.
Sister Gaillarde said to me as we came forth from my Lady,--"Had I been
a heathen Greek, and lived at the right time, methinks I should have wed
Democritus."
"Democritus! who was he?" said I.
"He was named the Laughing Philosopher," said she, "because he was ever
laughing at men and things. And methinks he did well."
"What is there to laugh at, Sister Gaillarde?"
"Nothing you saw, Saint Annora."
"Now you are laughing at me," said I, with a smile.
"My laugh will never hurt you," answered she. "But truly, betwixt
Sister Ada and the peacock--They both spread their plumes to be looked
at. I wonder which Father Mortimer will admire most."
"You surely never mean," said I, much shocked, "that Sister Ada expects
Father Mortimer to admire her!"
"Oh, she means nothing ill," said Sister Gaillarde. "She only admires
Ada Mansell so thoroughly herself, that she cannot conceive it possible
that any one can do otherwise. Let her spread her feathers--it won't
hurt. Any way, it will not hurt him. He isn't that sort of animal."
Indeed, I hope he is not.
When my Lady dismissed us, I went to my work in the illumination-room,
where Joan, with Sister Annot and Sister Josia, awaited my coming. I
bade Sister Josia finish the Holy Family she was painting yesterday for
a missal which we are preparing for my Lord's Grace of York; I told
Sister Annot to lay the gold leaf on the Book of Hours writing for my
Lady of Suffolk; and as Margaret, who commonly works with her, was not
yet come, I began myself to show Joan how to coil up the tail of a
griffin--she said, to put a yard of tail into an inch of parchment. It
appeared to amuse her very much to see how I twisted and interlaced the
tracery, so as to fill up every little corner of the parallelogram.
When the outline was drawn, and she began to fill it with cobalt, as I
sat by, she said suddenly yet softly--
"Mother Annora, I have been considering whether I should tell you
something."
"Tell me what, dear child?" quoth I.
"I am afraid," said she, "I shocked you yesterday, making you think I
was scarcely sound in the faith. Yet where can lie the verity of the
faith, if not in Holy Writ? And I marvelled if it should aggrieve you
less, if you knew one thing--yet that might give you pain."
"Let me hear it, Joan."
"Did you know," said she, dropping her voice low, "that it was in part
for heresy that your own father suffered death?"
"My father!" cried I. "Joan, I know nothing of my father, save only
that he angered Queen Isabel, and for what cause wis I not."
"For two causes: first, because the King her husband loved him, and she
was of that fashion that looked on all love borne by him as so much
robbed from herself. But the other was that very thing--that she was
orthodox, and he was--what the priests called an heretic. There might
be other causes: some men say he was proud, and covetous, and unpitiful.
I know not if it be true or no. But that they writ him down an
heretic, as also they did his father, and Archdeacon Baldok--so much I
know."