For the Master's Sake: A Story of the Days of Queen MaryHolt, Emily Sarah
History
For the Master's Sake: A Story of the Days of Queen Mary
Holt, Emily Sarah
Counter-Reformation -- England -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 16th century -- Fiction; Historical fiction
Meanwhile, in the outer world, the downward progress was very rapid.
One after another the Protestant Bishops were committed to prison, and
the chief preachers shared their fate. The first mass was sung at Saint
Bartholomew's on the eleventh of August, when the people were ready to
tear the officiating priest in pieces; but by the twenty-fourth of the
same month it was heard in other churches in London, and the hearers
were becoming reconciled to the innovation. The once powerful Duke of
Northumberland was beheaded on Tower Hill, notwithstanding his
profession of Popery at the last hour; the married priests were
deprived; the French Protestant residents were banished; the altar was
replaced in Saint Paul's; the Latin services, processions, palms, ashes,
candles, holy bread, holy water, and all the rest of the rubbish swept
away at the Reformation, came back one by one. That portion of the
populace which had no particular religion was well pleased enough with
these changes. The shows and the music were agreeable to them, and the
Gospel sermons which they displaced had not been agreeable.
Some tell us in the present day that young people must be attracted to
church, and that if music and pageant be not given them, their
attendance is not likely to be secured. But what have we gained by thus
going down to the Philistines to sharpen our weapons? Are these young
people attracted to any thing but the music and the pageant? They are
quite clever enough to realise the inconsistency of the man who serves
them with bread in the pulpit, while he hands out husks from the
chancel.
How many of us mean what we say, when the familiar words fall from our
lips, "I believe in the Holy Ghost"? Should we think it necessary, if
we really did so, to add all these condiments and spices to the pure
Bread of Life? Would it not be easier to discern the real flavour of
the heavenly ambrosia, if we might have it served without Italian
cookery?
And is there to be no thought taken for those who are won to Christ
already? to whom He is in Himself the all-sufficient attraction, and
these veils and gewgaws are but annoyances, or at least superfluities?
Where is the building up of the saints, the edifying of the Body of
Christ? Once was it said to Peter, "Feed My lambs;" but twice "Feed My
sheep." How is it that so many are satisfied with a state of things in
which the sheep of Christ are starved and disgusted for the sake of the
lambs, or in many cases rather for the sake of those who are not in the
fold at all?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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