The next day was Sunday, being the "Feast of the most Precious Blood"—a Sunday long remembered in that country side. The people, for a score of miles round, thronged to hear the Prior’s sermon. The Mayor of Malmsbury was there; but the clergy of the Abbey, it was noticed, were not present. The little Chapel would not hold a tithe of the people—indeed, few more than the gentry and their ladies, who came in great numbers, were allowed admission. Richard Inglesant and the Sheriff had Fald-stools in front of the altar, where they remained kneeling the whole of mass. The doors and windows of the Chapel were opened, that the people outside might assist at the celebration. They stood as thick as they could be packed in the little courtyard, and up the sloping fields around the Priory, listening in silence to the music of the mass; and at the sound of the bell the whole multitude fell on their knees as one man, remaining so for several minutes. Mass being over, the Prior came in procession from the Chapel to where a small wooden pulpit had been set up just outside the gate-house, in front of which seats were placed for the Sheriff and Inglesant, and the chief gentry. The silence was greater than ever, when the Prior, who had changed the gorgeous vestments in which he had celebrated mass, and appeared only as a simple monk, ascended the pulpit and began to preach. The Prior was a great preacher; a small and quiet man enough to look at, when he entered the pulpit he was transfigured. His form grew dignified, his face lighted up with enthusiasm, and his voice, even in the open air, was full and clear, and possessed that magical property of reaching the hearts of all who heard him, now melted into tenderness, and now raised to firm resolve. He began with the text that had haunted his memory the day before, and the first part of his sermon was simply an earnest and eloquent exhortation to follow Christ in preference to anything beside on earth. Then, warming in his subject, he answered the question (speaking that magnificent English tongue that even now rings in the pages of Foxe), Where was Christ? and urging the people to follow Him as He manifested Himself in the Church, and especially in the sacrament of the altar. Then suddenly throwing aside all reserve, and with a rapidity of utterance and a torrent of eloquence that carried his hearers with him, he rushed into the question of the day, brought face to face the opposing powers of the State and Christ, hurled defiance at the former, and while not absolutely naming the King or his council, denounced his policy in the plainest words. Then, amid the swaying of the excited crowd, and a half stifled cry and murmur, he suddenly dropped his voice, pronounced the formal benediction, and shrank back, to all appearance, into the quiet, timid monk.