will have nought to do.
Gerhardt never taught me to worship them, and Gerhardt's book has never
taught it either. I believe in the Lord my God, and His Son Jesus
Christ, the Messiah of Israel: but these gilded vanities are
abominations to me. Oh, why have ye Christian folk added your folly to
God's wisdom, and have held off the sons and daughters of Israel from
faith in Messiah the King?"

"Ah, why, indeed!" echoed Ermine softly.

"Can you tell me anything of our old friends at Oxford?" asked Countess
suddenly, after a moment's pause.

"Yes, we heard of them from Leuesa, who married and came to live in
London about six years ago," said Stephen. "Your people were all well,
Countess; your sister Regina has married Samuel, the nephew of your
uncle Jurnet's wife, and has a little family about her--one very pretty
little maid, Leuesa told us, with eyes like yours."

"Thank you," said Countess in a tone of some emotion. "They would not
own me now."

"Dear," whispered Ermine lovingly, "whosoever shall confess Christ
before men,--not the creed, nor the Church, but Him whom the Father
sent, and the truth to which He bore witness--him will He also confess
before our Father which is in Heaven. And I think there are a very few
of those whom He will present before the presence of His glory, who
shall hear Him say of them those words of highest praise that He ever
spoke on earth,--`She hath done what she could.'"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

HISTORICAL APPENDIX.

The sorrowful story of Gerhardt's Mission is told by William of Newbury
and Ranulph de Diceto. It seems strange that a company of thirty German
peasants should have set forth to bring England back to the pure
primitive faith; yet not stranger than that four hundred years earlier,
Boniface the Englishman should have set out to convert Germany from
heathenism. Boniface succeeded; Gerhardt failed. The reason for the
failure, no less than for the success, is hidden in the counsels of Him
who worketh all things according to His own will. The time was not yet.

It was in 1159 that this little company arrived in England, and for
seven years they preached without repression. Gerhardt, their leader,
was the only educated man amongst them, the rest being described as
"rustic and unpolished." Some have termed them Publicani or Paulikians;
whether they really belonged to that body is uncertain. William of
Newbury says they were a sect which came originally from Gascon