Margaret was mentally congratulating herself on this brilliant solution of all difficulties. Belasez looked up thoughtfully. "But did He promise to guard all the successors?" "Oh, of course!" "I wonder--supposing He were the Messiah--if He did," said Belasez. "Because I have sometimes thought that might explain it." "What might explain it?" "My damsel knows that the disciples of great teachers often corrupt their master's teaching, and in course of time they may come to teach doctrines quite different from his. It has struck me sometimes whether it might be so with you: that your Master was truly the Sent of God, and that you have so corrupted His doctrines that there is very little likeness left now. There must be very little, if He spoke according to the will of the Holy One." "But the Church never changes," said Margaret. "Then He could not be true," said Belasez. "Oh, but Father Nicholas says the Church develops! She always teaches the truth, but she unfolds it more and more as time goes on." "The truth is one, my damsel. It maybe more. But it can never be different and contrary." "But we change," urged Margaret, taking the last weapon out of her quiver. "We may need one thing to-day, and another to-morrow." "We may. And if the original command had been even, `Ye shall make no image _but one_,' I should think it might then, as need were, have been altered to, `Ye may now make a thousand images.' But being, `Ye shall make _none_' it cannot be altered. That would be to alter His character who is in all His universe the only unchangeable One." Margaret sat and watched the progress of the embroidery, but she said no more. CHAPTER FOUR. THE TIME OF JACOB'S TROUBLE. "I know that the thorny path I tread Is ruled with a golden line; And I know that the darker life's tangled thread, The brighter the rich design. "For I see, though veiled from my mortal sight, God's plan is all complete; Though the darkness at present be not light, And the bitter be not sweet." The course of public events at that time was of decidedly a stirring character. The public considered that four mock suns which had been seen during the previous winter, two snakes fighting in the sea off the south coast, and fifteen days' continuous thunder in the following March, were portents sufficiently formidable to account for any succeeding political events whatever. The Church was busy introducing the Order of Saint Francis into England. The populace were discovering how to manufacture cider, hitherto imported: and were, quite unknown to themselves, laying the foundation of their country's commercial greatness by breaking into the first vein of coal at Newcastle. In fact, the importance of this last discovery was so little perceived, that a hundred and fifty years were suffered to elapse before any advantage was taken of it.