ck again in the press, ready for another day and
other children, and we all go to bed as God made us.

But you must not think, my children, that our life is a little thing
because of this; I only mean that one thing is as little and as great as
another, and that maids maying in the country are as much about God's
business as kings and cardinals who strive in palaces, and who give to
this man a collar of Saint Spirit, and to that man a collar of hemp. It
was for this reason, maybe, that our Lord did all things when He was
upon earth. He rode upon His colt as a King; He reigned upon the rood;
He sat at meat with sinners; He wrought tables and chairs at the
carpenter's; He fashioned sparrows, as some relate, out of clay, and
made them fly; and He said that not a sparrow falls without His love and
intention; and He did all and said all in the same spirit and mind, and
at the end He smiled and put on His crown again, and sat down for ever
_ad dexteram Dei_, that He might let us do the same, and help us by His
grace, especially in the sacraments, to be merry and confident. [This is
a very puzzling philosophy. It is surely either very profound or very
shallow. But it certainly is not cynical. Sir John is incapable of such
a feeble emotion as that.]....

* * * * *

This then, too, I thought at that time.

It is marvellous how our Lord sets His seal upon all that we do, if we
will but attend to His working, and not think too highly upon what we do
ourselves. He had caused Master Richard to wear His five wounds until he
loved them, and to set his meat, too, in their order, and then He had
bidden His servant tell him that he did not need the piece of linen, for
that he should bear the wounds upon his body. And this He fulfilled;
for, as Master Blytchett told me, there were neither more nor less than
five wounds upon the young man's body, which he had received from the
crowd that set on him, besides the bruises and the stripes. He had
caused Master Richard, too, to be haled from judge to judge, as Himself
was haled; to be deemed Master by some, and named fool by others; to be
borne in a boat by one who loved him; to be arrayed in a white robe to
be judged without justice; to be dumb _sicut ovis ad occisionem ... et
quasi agnus coram tondente se_ ["as a sheep to the slaughter ... as a
lamb before his shearer" (Is. liii. 7.)], with many other points and
marks, besides that which fell afterwards, whe