It would seem that I have erred in offering my communions at all. For if to eat Christ's Body be only to have mind of Him--and this is according to His own word, "_Hoc facite in meam commemorationem_"--how then can there be at all any offering of sacrifice in the holy mass? Joan says that Saint Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews saith that we be hallowed by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once, and that where remission is, there is no more oblation for sin. Truly we have need to pray, Lord, guide us into Thy truth! and yet more, Lord, keep us therein! I must think hereon. In sooth, this I do, and then up rises some great barrier to the new doctrine, which I lay before Joan: and as quickly as the sun can break forth and melt a spoonful of snow, does she clear all away with some word of Saint Paul. She has his Epistles right at her tongue's end. For instance, quoth I,--"Christ said He should bestow the Holy Spirit, to lead the Church into all truth. How then can the Church err?" "What Church?" said she, boldly. "The Church is all righteous men that hold Christ's words: not the Pope and Cardinals and such like. These last have no right to hold the first in bondage." "But," said I, "Father Benedict told me Saint Paul bade the religious to obey their superiors: how much more all men to obey the Church?" "I marvel," saith she, "where Father Benedict found that. Never a word says Paul touching religious persons: there were none in his day." "No religious in Paul's day!" cried I. "Never so much as one," saith she: "not a monk, not a nun! Friar Pareshull himself told me so much; he is a great man among us. Saint Peter bids the clergy not to dominate over inferiors; Saint Paul says to the Ephesians that out of themselves (he was speaking to the clergy) should arise heretics speaking perversely; and Saint John says, `Believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits if they be of God.' Dear Mother Annora, we are nowhere bidden in Scripture to obey the Church save only once, and that concerns the settling of a dispute betwixt two members of it. Obey the Church! why, we are ourselves the Church. Has not Father Rolle taught you so much? `Holy Kirk,' quoth he--`that is, ilk righteous man's soul.' Verily, all Churches be empowered of Christ to make laws for their own people: but why then must the Church of England obey laws made by the Bishop of Rome?" "Therein," said I, "can I fully hold with thee." "And for all things," she said earnestly, "let us hold to God's law, and take our interpretation of it not from men, but straight from God Himself. Lo! here is the promise of the Holy Ghost assured unto the Church--to you, to me, to each one that followeth Christ. They that keep His words and are indwelt of His Spirit--these, dear Mother, are the Church of God, and to them is the truth promised." I said nought, for I knew not what to answer.