at manner of life? Surely not the common life of
nature, for that may be sustained by other food. The life, then, is a
spiritual life; and how shall spiritual life be sustained by natural
meat? The meat must be spiritual, if the life be so. Again He
saith,--`He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me,
and I in him.' Now, if the eating be after a literal manner, so also
must be the dwelling. Our bodies, therefore, must be withinside the
body of Christ in Heaven, and His body must be withinside every one of
ours on earth. That this is impossible and ridiculous alike, I need not
to tell you. Mistress Blanche, faith is not to believe whatsoever any
shall tell you. It is less to believe a thing than to trust a man. And
I can only trust a man on due testimony that he is worthy trust."

"But this is to trust Christ our Lord," said Blanche.

"Ay so, my maid? Or is it rather to trust our own fantasy of what
Christ would say?"

Blanche was silent for a moment; then she answered,--"But He did say,
`This is My body.'"

"Will you go further, an' it like you?"

"How, Master Tremayne?"

"`This is My body, which is broken for you.' Was the bread that He held
in His hand the body that was broken? Did that morsel of bread take
away the sin of the world? Look you, right in so far as the bread was
the body, in so far also was the breaking of that bread the death of
that body,--and no further. Now, Mistress Blanche, was the breaking of
the bread the death of the body? Think thereon, and answer me."

"It was an emblem or representation thereof, no doubt," she said slowly.

"Good. Then, inasmuch as the breaking did set forth the death, in so
much did the bread set forth the body. If the one be an emblem, so must
be the other."

"That may be, perchance," said Blanche, sheering off from the subject,
as she found it passing beyond her, and requiring the troublesome effort
of thought: "but, Master Tremayne, there is one other matter whereon the
speech of you Gospellers verily offendeth me no little."

"Pray you, tell me what it is, Mistress Blanche."

"It is the little honour, or I might well say the dishonour, that you do
put upon Saint Mary the blessed Virgin. Surely, of all that He knew and
loved on this earth, she must have been the dearest unto our Lord. Why
then thus scrimp and scant the reverence due unto her? Verily, in this
matter, the Papists do more meetly than you."

"`More meetly