she lay of her
last sickness, that she would fain have shriven her of the friar in the
frieze habit. Wherefore, cannot I say."

"Then perchance I can say it for you:--for I reckon it was because he
brought her gladder tidings than she had heard of other."

Amphillis looked surprised. "Why, whatso? Sermons be all alike, so far
as ever I could tell."

"Be they so? No, verily, Amphillis. Is there no difference betwixt
preaching of the law--`Do this, and thou shalt live,' and preaching of
the glad gospel of the grace of God--`I give unto them everlasting
life?'"

"But we must merit Heaven!" exclaimed Amphillis.

"Our Lord, then, paid not the full price, but left at the least a few
marks over for us to pay? Nay, He bought Heaven for us, Amphillis: and
only He could do it. We have nothing to pay; and if we had, how should
our poor hands reach to such a purchase as that? It took God to save
the world. Ay, and it took God, too, to love the world enough to save
it."

"Why, but if so be, we are saved--not shall be."

"We are, if we ever shall be."

"But is that true Catholic doctrine?"

"It is the true doctrine of God's love. Either, therefore, it is
Catholic doctrine, or Catholic doctrine hath erred from it."

"But the Church cannot err!"

"Truth, so long as she keep her true to God's law. The Church is men,
not God! and God must be above the Church. But what is the Church? Is
it this priest or that bishop? Nay, verily; it is the congregation of
all the faithful elect that follow Christ, and do after His
commandments. So long, therefore, as they do after His commands, and
follow Him, they be little like to err. `He that believeth in the Son
_hath_ everlasting life.'"

"But we all believe in our Lord!" said Amphillis, feeling as if so many
new ideas had never entered her head all at once before.

"Believe what?" said Marabel, and she smiled.

"Why, we believe that He came down from Heaven, and died, and rose
again, and ascended, and such-like."

"Wherefore?"

"Wherefore came He? Truly, that know I not. By reason that it liked
Him, I count."

"Ay, that was the cause," said Marabel, softly. "He came because--shall
we say?--He so loved Amphillis Neville, that He could not do without her
in Heaven: and as she could win there none other way than by the laying
down of His life, He came and laid it down."

"Marabel! Never heard I none to speak after this manner! Soothly, our
Lord died for u