“My father, I am so glad, so glad you are here, my faith was failing me.”
“In the justice of our cause; why do we stand almost alone, against the great majority of our countrymen?”
“Would’st thou have been with the majority or minority at the Flood? at Sodom? in guilty Jerusalem? Dear boy, majorities are nothing; indeed too often they but mark the broad way which leadeth to destruction; nor have they even the _majority_ on their side, miserable as the support drawn from thence would be; for England stands alone amongst the Christian commonwealths in her present schism.[45]
“Then, again, my dear boy, remember the words of your beloved benefactor, when he stood before his judges at Wells; and again in that hour when he parted from you with words of blessing, in the gatehouse chamber at Glastonbury; methinks it would pain his blessed spirit, even in Paradise, to hear that his adopted son, whom he loved so well, doubted.”
The good father was using the very best means which could be used to keep his _protegé_ firm in the path, which he believed the only road to heaven; argument might have failed to convince where faith was shaken, but the love of one who had died so nobly and patiently for the impugned tenet, carrying his mute appeal to the judgment seat on high, lit again the expiring embers of faith--“I will be true to him till death,” he said; “as _he_ died so will I die; and will stake soul and body on the creed which trained so noble a martyr, ‘sit anima mea cum illo.’”
“Methinks,” said the good Prior, “I see him looking down upon thee now; see through these thick walls, and this murky autumnal sky, to the heaven beyond where he sits waiting, near the gate, for his adopted son, whom he committed to my care! Well! when I see him, I shall say ‘Behold father, here am I, and the lad whom thou gavest me.’”
Cuthbert wept upon the shoulder of the good Prior.
“He shall not be deceived in me; I will tread the path he trod.”
“By God’s grace, which alone can strengthen us weak ones; and what is the worst we have to bear--the gibbet and quartering block? Well, they cannot protract it more than half-an-hour; half-an-hour! why had it begun when I entered this cell, it had been over now, and we safe on the other side.”