by his late crusading father, who warned him to tell the
archbishop, through the Bishop of Lincoln, that the evil state of the
church must be amended. The message and the messenger seem to answer
exactly to the monk of Evesham, whose Dantesque revelations{18} are here
almost quoted. The wrath of God was incurred by the unchaste living
priests, who so behaved that the Sacraments were polluted, and by the
manner in which archdeacons and others trafficked in bribes. Hugh heard
the story at the altar, wept, dried the eyes of both, kissed the young
man and brought him into the meal afterwards, and urged him to become a
monk. This he did, and became the Monk of Evesham aforesaid. There is no
necessary advance in Eucharistic doctrine in this story, for a similar
vision was given to King Edward the Confessor, and Hugh was so reticent
about such things that his chaplain Adam never dared to ask him,
although he dreamed that he asked him and was snubbed for his pains.
"Although then, when you say, and more often, the Lord deigned to reveal
this and other things to me, what do you want in the matter?" In his
last journey to Jouay,{19} an old, feeble and withered priest, who would
not dine with him as the parish priest was wont, came to ask him to see
a wonder and to beg for his prayers. His story was that he, being in
mortal sin, blind and weak in faith and practices, was saying Mass, and
doubting whether so dirty a sinner could really handle so white and
stainless a glory. When the fraction took place, blood dripped from the
host and it grew into flesh. He dropped the new thing into the chalice,
covered it up, dismissed the people, and got papal absolution, and now
would fain show the wonder. The lesser men were agape for the sight, but
Hugh answered, "In the Lord's name let them keep the signs of their
infidelity to themselves. What are they to us? Are we to be astonished
at the partial shows of the Divine gift, who daily behold this heavenly
sacrifice whole and entire with most faithful gaze of mind? Let him, who
beholds not with the inner sight of faith the whole, go and behold the
man's little scraps with his carnal vision." He then blessed the priest
and dismissed him, and rebuked his followers for curiosity, and gave
them a clear Eucharistic lesson not repeated for us, upon what faith
lays down in the matter. From his speech then and elsewhere the good
Adam gathered that Hugh often saw what others only believed to be there,
t