"What will people say?" comes next,
and often pretty near; but "What does God tell me to do?" is a long way
off, and sometimes so far off that they never come to it at all!

Bishop Grosteste lived in one of the darkest days of Christianity.
Thick, dense ignorance, of all kinds, overwhelmed the masses of the
people. Books were worth their weight in gold, there were so few of
them; and still worse, very few could read them. When we know that
there was a law by which a man who had been sentenced to death could
claim pardon if he were able to read one verse of a Psalm, it gives us
an idea how very little people can have known, and what a precious thing
learning was held to be. Even the clergy were not much wiser than the
rest, and they were generally the best educated of any. Most of them
could just get through the services, not so much by reading them as by
knowing what they had to say; and they often made very queer blunders
between words which were nearly alike. A few, here and there, were
really learned men; and Bishop Grosteste was one of them. He had
learned "all that Europe could furnish," and he knew so much that the
poor ignorant people about him fancied he must have obtained his
knowledge by magic. But far better than all this, Bishop Grosteste was
taught of God. His soul was like a plant which grew up towards the
light, and Jesus Christ was his Sun.

In this day of full, brilliant Gospel light, we can hardly imagine the
state of affairs then. Perhaps one fact will help us to do it as well
as many. In every house there was an image set up before which all
prayers were said. Sometimes it was a crucifix, sometimes an image of
the Virgin Mary, sometimes of some other saint--for the saints, male and
female, were a great crowd. But the crucifix or the Virgin Mary were
generally preferred; and why? Because the poor worshippers fancied that
the crucifix had more power than the image of a saint, and that the
Virgin was able to look after her own candle! A torch, or in later
times a candle, was always burning in front of the image; and of course
if the image could keep it alight, it was much less trouble to the
worshipper!

But had they no common sense in those days? Well, really, it looks
sometimes as if they had not. When men once turn aside from God's Word,
it is impossible to say to what folly or wickedness they will not go.
"The entrance of Thy words giveth light; yea, it giveth understanding
unto