hing I
like?"

"Why, at that rate," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "one should never search God's
Word, nor pray unto Him,--except such as did not love it. Methinks
these _Mennonites_ stand o' their heads, with their heels in air."

"Ah, but they say it is God's command that thou shalt not please
thyself," saith _Mynheer_. "Therefore, that which pleases thee cannot
be His will. You see?"

"They do but run the old monks' notions to ground," quoth _Father_.
"They go a bit further--that is all. I take it that whensoever my will
is contrary unto God's, my will must go down. But when my will runneth
alongside of His, surely I am at liberty to take as much pleasure in
doing His will as I may? `Ye have been called unto liberty,' saith
_Paul_: `only, let not your liberty be an occasion to the flesh, but in
love serve one another.'"

"And if serving one another be pleasant unto thee, then give o'er,"
quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "Good lack, this world doth hold some fools!"

"Pure truth, _Joyce_," saith _Father_. "Yet, for that of monks, in good
sooth I do look to see them back, only under other guise. Monachism is
human nature: and human nature will out. If he make not way at one
door, trust him to creep forth of an other."

"But, _Aubrey_, the Church is reformed. There is no room for monks and
nuns, and such rubbish," saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"The Church is reformed,--ay," saith he: "but human nature is not. That
shall not be until we see the King in His beauty,--whether by our going
to Him in death, or by His coming to us in the clouds of heaven."

"Dear heart, man!--be not alway on the watch for black clouds," quoth
she. "As well turn _Mennonite_ at once."

"Well, `sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" _Father_ makes
answer: "and so far thou art right, _Joyce_. Yet it is well we should
remember, at times, that we be not yet in Heaven."

"`At times!'" quoth Aunt _Joyce_, with a laugh. "What a blessed life
must be thine, if those that be about thee suffer thee to forget the
same save `at times'! I never made that blunder yet, I can tell thee."

And so she and I away, and left all laughing.

SELWICK HALL, OCTOBER YE XXII.
This afternoon come _Hal_ and _Anstace_, with their childre. _Milly_
soon carried off the childre, for she is a very child herself, and can
lake [play] with childre a deal better than I: and _Hal_ went (said he)
to seek _Father_, with whom I found him a