Chapter 32 - Page 2

"These are delusions of the Enemy," said the Sub-Prior, crossing
himself.--"Christian men may no longer doubt of it."

"But an it be so," said Warden, "Christian men might better guard
themselves by the sword of prayer than by the idle form of a
cabalistical spell."

"The badge of our salvation," said the Sub-Prior, "cannot be so
termed--the sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits."

"Ay," answered Henry Warden, apt and armed for controversy, "but it
should be borne in the heart, not scored with the fingers in the air.
That very impassive air, through which your hand passes, shall as soon
bear the imprint of your action, as the external action shall avail
the fond bigot who substitutes vain motions of the body, idle
genuflections, and signs of the cross, for the living and heart-born
duties of faith and good works."

"I pity thee," said the Sub-Prior, as actively ready for polemics as
himself,--"I pity thee, Henry, and reply not to thee. Thou mayest as
well winnow forth and measure the ocean with a sieve, as mete out the
power of holy words, deeds, and signs, by the erring gauge of thine
own reason."

"Not by mine own reason would I mete them," said Warden; "but by
His holy Word, that unfading and unerring lamp of our paths, compared to
which human reason is but as a glimmering and fading taper, and your
boasted tradition only a misleading wildfire. Show me your Scripture
warrant for ascribing virtue to such vain signs and motions!"

"I offered thee a fair field of debate," said the Sub-Prior, "which
thou didst refuse. I will not at present resume the controversy."

"Were these my last accents," said the reformer, "and were they
uttered at the stake, half-choked with smoke, and as the fagots
kindled into a blaze around me, with that last utterance I would
testify against the superstitious devices of Rome."

The Sub-Prior suppressed with pain the controversial answer which
arose to his lips, and, turning to Edward Glendinning, he said, "there
could be now no doubt that his mother ought presently to be informed
that her son lived."

"I told you that two hours since," said Christie of the Clinthill, "an
you would have believed me. But it seems you are more willing to take
the word of an old gray sorner, whose life has been spent in pattering
heresy, than mine, though I never rode a foray in my life without duly
saying my paternoster."

"Go then," said Father Eustace to Edward; "let thy sorrowing mother
know that her son is restored to her from the grave,