"We shall see when we are there," saith _Father_. "I think not."

Sir _Robert_ pursed up his lips as though he could no wise allow the same.

"Mind you, _Robin_," saith _Father_, "I say not that there may not be allegory touching some of the details. I reckon the pearls of the twelve gates were never found in earthly oysters: nor do I account that the gold of the streets was molten in an earthly furnace. No more, when _Edith_ saith she will run and fetch a thing, should I think to accuse her of falsehood if I saw that she walked, and ran not. 'Tis never well to fetch a parable down on all fours. You and I use allegory always in our common talk."

"Ay," quoth Sir _Robert_: "but you reckon they _be_ pearls, and gold?"

"I will tell you when I have seen them," saith _Father_, and smiled.

"Either they be gold and pearls, or they be that to which, in our earthly minds, gold and pearls come the nearest. Why, my friend, we be all but lisping children to G.o.d. Think you one moment, and tell me if every word we use touching Him hath not in it more or less of parable?

We call Him Father, and King, and Master, and Guide, and Lord. Is not every one of these taken from earthly relationships, and doth it not presuppose a something which is to be found on earth? We have no better wits than to do so here. If G.o.d would teach us that we know not, it must be by talking to us touching things we do know. Did not you the same with your children when they were babes? How far we may be able to penetrate, when we be truly men, grown up unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of _Christ_, verily I cannot tell. Only I do see that not only all _Scripture_, but all a.n.a.logy, pointeth to a time when we shall emerge from this caterpillar state, and spread our wings as b.u.t.terflies in the sunshine. Nay, there is yet a better image in nature. The grub of the dragon-fly dwelleth in the waters, and cannot live in the air till it come forth into the final state. Tell me then, I pray you, how shall this water-grub conceive the notion of flying through the air? Supposing you able to talk with him, could you represent the same unto him other than by the conceit of gliding through water with most delightsome swiftness and directness? To talk of an element wherein he had no experience should be simply so much nonsense to him. Now, it may be--take me not, I pray you, as meaning it must be--that all that shall be found in Heaven differs as greatly from what is found on earth as the water differs from the air. Concerning these matters, I take it, G.o.d teaches us by likening them to such things as we know that shall give the best conceit of them to our minds. Here on earth, the fairest and most costly matter is gold and gems. Well, He would have us know that the heavenly city is builded of the fairest and most precious matter. But that the matter is real, and that the city is builded of somewhat, that will I yield to none. To do other were to make it a fairy tale, Heaven in cloud-land, and G.o.d Himself but the shadow of a dream. The only difference I can see is, that we should never awake from the dream, but should go on dreaming it for ever."

"O _Louvaine_!" saith Sir _Robert_. "I can never allow of matter in Heaven. All there is spiritual."

"Now, what mean you by matter?" saith _Father_. "Matter is a term of this world. I argue not for matter in Heaven as opposed to spirit, but for reality as opposed to allegory."

"You'll be out of my depth next plunge," saith Sir _Robert_, merrily.

"We shall both be out of our depth, _Robin_, ere long, and under your leave there will we leave it. But I see you are a bit of a _Manichee_."

"That is out of my depth, at any rate," quoth he. "I am but ill read in ancient controversies, though I know you dabble in them."

"Why, I have dipped my fingers into a good parcel of matters in my time," saith _Father_. "But the _Manichees_, old friend, were men that did maintain the inherent evil of matter. All things, with them, were wicked that had to do therewith. Wherein, though they knew it not, they were much akin to the _Indian_ mystics of _Buddha_, that do set their whole happiness in the attaining of _Nirvana_."

"What is that?" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Is it an _India_ G.o.ddess, or something good to eat?"

"It is," quoth _Father_, "the condition of having no ideas."

"Good lack!" saith she, "then daft _Madge_ is nearest perfection of us all."

"Perhaps she is, in sober truth," _Father_ makes answer.

"Meseemeth," whispers _Milisent_ to me, "that _Jack Benn_ is a _Manichee_."

"'Tis strange," saith _Father_, as in meditation, "how those old heresies shall be continually re-born under new names: nor only that, but how in the heart of every man and woman there is by nature a leaning unto some form of heresy. Here is _Robin Stafford_ a _Manichee_: and _Bess_ a _Mennonite_: and my Lady _Stafford_ (if I mistake not) a _Stoic_: and _Mynheer_ somewhat given to be a _Cynic_: and _Lettice_ and _Milisent_, methinks, are by their nature _Epicureans_. Mistress _Martin_, it seemeth me, should be an _Essene_: and what shall we call thee, _Edith_?"

"Aught but a _Pharisee_, _Father_," said I, laughing.

"Nay, thou art no _Pharisee_," saith he. "But that they were a nation and not a sect, I should write thee down a _Sybarite_. _Nell_ is as near a _Pharisee_ as we have one in the chamber; yet methinketh it were to insult her to give her such a name."

"Go on," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "I'm waiting."

"What, for thine own cla.s.s?"

"Mine and thine," saith she.

_Father's_ eyes did shine with fun. "Well, _Joyce_, to tell truth, I am somewhat puzzled to cla.s.s thee: but I am disposed to put thee amongst the _Brownists_."

"What on earth for?" saith she.

"Why," quoth he, "because thou hast a mighty notion of having things thine own way."

"Sir _Robert_," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "pray you, box my cousin's ears for me, as you sit convenient.--And what art thou thine own self, thou caitiff?"

"A _Bonus h.o.m.o_," answers _Father_, right sadly: whereat all that did know _Latin_ fell a-laughing. And I, asking at my Lady _Stafford_, she told me that _Bonus h.o.m.o_ is to say Good Man, and was in past time the name of a certain Order of friars, that had carried down the truth of the Gospel from the first ages in a certain part lying betwixt _Italy_ and _France_.

"_Nell_," saith _Father_, "I did thee wrong to call thee a _Pharisee_: thou art rather a _Herodian_."

"But I pray you, Sir _Aubrey_, what did you mean by the name you gave me?" saith Mistress _Martin_. "For I would fain wit my faults, that I may go about to amend them: and as at this present I am none the wiser."

"The _Essenes_," saith he, "Mistress _Martin_, were a sect of the Jews, so extreme orthodox that they did deny to perform sacrifice or worship in the Temple, seeing there they should have to mingle themselves with other sects, and with wicked men that brought not their sacrifices rightly. Moreover, they would neither eat flesh-meat nor drink wine: and they believed not that there were so much as one good woman in the whole world."

"Then I cry you mercy, Sir _Aubrey_," quoth she, "but if so be, a.s.suredly I am not of them. I do most heartily believe in good women, whereof methinks I can see four afore me, at the very least, this instant moment: nor have I yet abjured neither wine nor flesh-meat."

"Oh no, the details be different," saith he: "yet I dare be bold to say, you have a conceit of a perfect Church, whereinto no untrue man should ever be suffered to enter."

"Ay, that have I," said she. "Methinks the Church of _England_ is too comprehensive, and should be drawn on stricter lines."

"And therein are you an _Essene_," answereth _Father_.

"Oh, _Grissel_ would fain have every man close examined," saith Sir _Robert_, "and only admitted unto the Lord's Supper by the clergy after right strict dealing."

"Were you alway of this manner of thought, Mistress _Martin_?" asks _Father_.

"I trow not," said she. "As one gets on in life, you see, one doth perceive many difficulties and differences that one noted not aforetime."

"One is more apt to fall into ruts, that I know," saith Aunt _Joyce_: "I had ado enough, and yet have, to keep me out of them."

"A man is apt to do one of two things," saith _Father_: "either to fall into a rut, or to leave the road altogether. Either his charity contracteth, and he can see none right that walk not in his rut; or else his charity breaketh all bounds, and he would have all to be right, which way soever they walk."

"Why, those be the two ends of the pole," quoth Sir _Robert_, "and, I warrant you, you shall find _Grissel_ right at the end, which so it be.

She hath a conceit that a man cannot be too right, nor that, if a thing be good, you cannot have too much thereof."

"Ah, that hangeth on the thing," saith _Father_. "You cannot have too much faith nor charity, but you may get too much syllabub. Methinks that is scantly the true rendering thereof. Have not the proportions much to do withal? If a man's faith outrun his charity, behold him at the one end of your pole; but if his charity outrun his faith, here is he at the other. Now faith and charity should keep pace. Let either get afore the other, and the man is no longer a perfect man; but a man with one limb grown out, and another shrivelled up."

"But, Sir _Aubrey_," quoth Mistress _Martin_, "can a man be too holy, or too happy?"

"Surely not, Mistress _Martin_," saith he. "But look you, G.o.d is the fountain and pattern of both: and in Him all attributes are at once in utmost perfection, and in strictest proportion. We sons of _Adam_, since his fall, be gone out of proportion. And note you, for it is worthy note--that nothing short of revelation did ever yet conceive of a perfect G.o.d. The G.o.ds of the heathen were altogether such as themselves. Even very _Christians_, with revelation to guide them, are ever starting aside like a broken bow in their conceits of G.o.d. Either they would have Him all justice and no mercy, or else all mercy and no justice: and the looser they hold by the revelation G.o.d has made of Himself, the dimmer and the more out of proportion be their thoughts of G.o.d. The most men frame a G.o.d unto themselves, and be a.s.sured that he shall be like themselves--that the sins which he holds in abhorrence shall be the sins whereto they are not p.r.o.ne."

"Are we not, in fine," saith Sir _Robert_, "so far gone from original righteousness, that our imperfect nature hath lost power to imagine perfection?"

"Not a doubt thereof," saith _Father_. "Look you but abroad in the world. You shall find pride lauded and called high spirit and n.o.bleness: covetousness is prudence and good thrift: flattery and conformity to the world are good nature and kindliness. Every blast from h.e.l.l hath been renamed after one of the breezes of Heaven."

There was silence so long after this that I reckoned the discourse were o'er. When all suddenly saith Sir _Robert_:--

"_Louvaine_, have you much hope for the future--whether of the Church or of the world?"

"All hope in G.o.d: none out of Him."