didn't believe, and wherefore I did this and didn't do
that, till I warrant you, afore he left off, I was that moithered I
couldn't have told what I did believe. I got so muggy I only knew one
thing under the sun, and that was that I'd have given my best gown for
to be rid of him."

"Well, you got free without your best gown, Margaret," said Rose.

"May be I have, but I feel as if I'd left all my wits behind me in the
lane, or mayhap in the priest's pocket. Whatever would the man be at?
We pay our dues to the Church, and we're honest, peaceable folks: if it
serve us better to read our Bible at home rather than go look at him
hocus-pocussing in the church, can't he let us be? Truly, if he'd give
us something when we came, there'd be some reason for finding fault;
nobody need beg me to go to church when there's sermon: but what earthly
good can it do any mortal man to stare at a yellow cross on Father Tye's
back? And what good do you ever get beyond it?"

Sermons have always been a Protestant institution, in this sense, that
the more pure and Scriptural the Church has been, the more sermons there
have generally been, while whenever the clergy have taken up with
foolish ceremonies and have departed from the Bible, they have tried to
do away with preaching. And of course, when very few people could read
their Bibles, there was more need of preaching than there is now, when
nearly everybody can read. Very, very few poor people could read a word
in 1556. It was put down as something remarkable, in the case of
Cissy's father, that he could "read a little." Saint Paul says that it
pleased God by preaching to save them that believe (1 Corinthians one
21), but he never says "by hearing music," or "by looking at flowers, or
candles, or embroidered crosses." Those things can only amuse our eyes
and ears; they will never do our souls any good. How can they? The
only thing that will do good to our souls is to get to know God better:
and flowers, candles, music, and embroidery, cannot teach us anything
about God.

"What laugh you at, Rose?" asked Elizabeth.

"Only Margaret's notion that it could do no man good to stare at the
cross on Father Tye's back," said Rose, trying to recover her gravity.

"Well, the only animal made with a cross on his back is an ass," said
Margaret; "and one would think a man should be better than an ass; but
if his chief business be to make himself look like one, I don't see that
he is so mu