myself
under a further obligation to you by accepting your resignation: and this
I do for both our sakes. For yours, because, as you confess, this action
of the Queen's--(I neither condemn nor excuse it myself)--this action has
influenced your thoughts: therefore you had best be removed from it to a
place where you can judge more quietly. And I accept it for my own sake
too; for several reasons that I need not trouble you with. But in doing
this, I desire you, Mr. Norris, to continue to draw your salary until
Midsummer:--nay, nay, you must let me have my say. You are at liberty to
withdraw as soon as you have wound up your arrangements with Mr.
Somerdine; he will now, as Yeoman of the Horse, have your duties as well
as his own; for I do not intend to have another Gentleman of the Horse.
As regards an increase of salary for him, that can wait until I see him
myself. In any case, Mr. Norris, I think you had better withdraw before
Mid-Lent Sunday.

"And now for your trouble. I know very well that I cannot be of much
service to you. I am no controversialist. But I must bear my witness.
This Papist with whom you have had talk seems a very plausible fellow.
His arguments sound very plain and good; and yet I think you could prove
anything by them. They seem to me like that openwork embroidery such as
you see on Communion linen sometimes, in which the pattern is formed by
withdrawing certain threads. He has cleverly omitted just those points
that would ruin his argument; and he has made a pretty design. But any
skilful advocate could make any other design by the same methods. He has
not thought fit to deal with such words of our Saviour as what He says on
Tradition; with what the Scriptures say against the worshipping of
angels; with what St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians, in the
second chapter, concerning all those carnal ordinances which were done
away by Christ, but which have been restored by the Pope in his despite;
he does not deal with those terrible words concerning the man of sin and
the mystery of iniquity. In fact, he takes just one word that Christ let
fall about His Kingdom, and builds this great edifice upon it. You might
retort to him in a thousand ways such as these. Bishop Jewell, in his
book, as you know, deals with these questions and many more; far more
fully than it is possible for you and me even to dream of doing. Nay, Mr.
Norris; the only argument I can lay before you is this. There are
dif