"How do they serve them when they would get them wed?" saith _Father_. "Quoth Master _John_ to Mistress _Bess_, `Wed me' and no more?--and saith she, `Ay' and no more? A kiss, I ween, shall be a sin, for 'tis no wise necessary." I could not help to laugh, and so did Aunt _Joyce_ and _Mother_. "Wed!" makes answer _Mynheer_, "the _Mennonites_ wed? Why, 'tis the biggest of all their sins, the wedding." "There'll not be many of them, I reckon," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "More than you should think," saith he. "There be to join them every year." "Well, I'll not join them this bout," quoth she. "Now, wherein doth that differ from the old monks?" saith _Father_, as in meditation. "Be we setting up monasteries for _Protestants_ already?" _Mynheer_ shrugged up his shoulders. "They say, the _Mennonites_," he made answer, "that all pleasing of self is contrary unto God's Word. I must do nothing that pleases me. Are there two dishes for my dinner? I like this, I like not that. Good! I take that I love not. Elsewise, I please me. A Christian man must not please himself--he must please God. And (they say) he cannot please both." "Ah, therein lieth the fallacy," saith _Father_. "All pleasing of self counter unto God, no doubt, is forbidden in Holy Scripture. But surely I am not bid to avoid doing God's commandments, if He command a thing I like?" "Why, at that rate," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "one should never search God's Word, nor pray unto Him,--except such as did not love it. Methinks these _Mennonites_ stand o' their heads, with their heels in air." "Ah, but they say it is God's command that thou shalt not please thyself," saith _Mynheer_. "Therefore, that which pleases thee cannot be His will. You see?" "They do but run the old monks' notions to ground," quoth _Father_. "They go a bit further--that is all. I take it that whensoever my will is contrary unto God's, my will must go down. But when my will runneth alongside of His, surely I am at liberty to take as much pleasure in doing His will as I may? `Ye have been called unto liberty,' saith _Paul_: `only, let not your liberty be an occasion to the flesh, but in love serve one another.'" "And if serving one another be pleasant unto thee, then give o'er," quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "Good lack, this world doth hold some fools!" "Pure truth, _Joyce_," saith _Father_. "Yet, for that of monks, in good sooth I do look to see them back, only under other guise. Monachism is human nature: and human nature will out. If he make not way at one door, trust him to creep forth of an other." "But, _Aubrey_, the Church is reformed. There is no room for monks and nuns, and such rubbish," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "The Church is reformed,--ay," saith he: "but human nature is not. That shall not be until we see the King in His beauty,--whether by our going to Him in death, or by His coming to us in the clouds of heaven."