glory
that be only due to Him. `My glory will I not give to another, neither
My praise to graven images.' Nay, I would call an image of Christ
Himself a thing accursed, if it stood in His place in the hearts of men.
Mark you, King Hezekiah utterly destroyed the serpent of brass that was
God's own appointed likeness of Christ, that moment that the children of
Israel did begin to burn incense unto it, thereby making it an idol."

"But in the Papistical Church they be no idols, Master Tremayne!"
interposed Blanche eagerly. "Therein lieth the difference betwixt
Popery and Paganism."

"What should you say, Mistress Blanche, if you wist that therein lieth
_no_ difference betwixt Popery and Paganism? The old Pagans were wont
to say the same thing. [Note 1.] They should have laughed in your face
if you had charged them with worshipping wood and stone, and have
answered that they worshipped only the thing signified. So much is it
thus, that amongst some Pagan nations, they do hold that their god
cometh down in his proper person into the image for a season (like as
the Papists into the wafer of the sacrament), and when they account him
gone, they cast the image away as no more worth. Yet hark you how God
Himself accounteth of this their worship. `He maketh a god, even his
graven image: he falleth down unto IT, and worshippeth IT, and prayeth
unto IT, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.' And list also how
He expoundeth the same:--`A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that
he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right
hand?' [Isaiah 44, verses 17, 20.] There should be little idolatry in
this world if there were no deceived hearts."

Blanche twisted her handkerchief about, in the manner of a person who is
determined not to be convinced, yet can find nothing to say in answer.

"Tell me, Mistress Blanche,--for I think too well of your good sense to
doubt the same,--you cannot believe that Christ Himself is in a piece of
bread?"

In her inmost heart she certainly believed no such thing. But it would
never do to retreat from her position. In Blanche's eyes, disgrace lay
not in being mistaken, but in being shown the mistake.

"Wherefore may it not be so?" she murmured. "'Tis matter of faith, in
like manner as is our Lord's resurrection."

"In like manner? I cry you mercy. You believe the resurrection on the
witness of them that knew it--that saw the sepulchre void; that saw
Christ,