"We shall," answered Lady Judith. "But it will not be in this world." "But Sister Eudoxia says it might be." "Ah, my poor Sister Eudoxia!" said Lady Judith sadly. "She has taken up with a heresy nearly as old as Christianity itself, and worse than than that of Messire Renaud de Montluc, because it has so much more truth in it. Ay, so much mixture of truth, and so much apparent loveliness, that it can be no wonder if it almost deceive the very elect. Beware of being entangled in it, my children." "Heresy, holy Mother!" cried Lady Sybil, with a shocked look. "I thought I had never heard any one ascribe more of the glory of our salvation to God than she did. For she said that every thing was done for us by the good Lord, and that even our perfection was wrought by Him for us." "And not by Him in us," said Lady Judith. "The very point of the heresy, my child. Eudoxia sees no distinction between the righteousness done for us, which is our ground of justification before God, and the holiness wrought in us, which is our conformity to His image. The first was finished on the rood, eleven centuries ago: the second goes on in the heart of every child of God, here and now. She is one of those who, without intending it, or even knowing that they do it, do yet sadly fail to realise the work of the Holy Ghost. "But how much she spoke of the blessed Spirit!" objected Lady Sybil. "My daughter," said Lady Judith, with a smile, "hast thou not yet found out the difference between names and things? There are many men who worship God most devoutly, but it is a God they have made to themselves. Every man on earth is ready to love and serve God with his whole heart,—if he may set up God after his own pattern. And what that really means is, a God as like as possible to himself: who will look with perfect complacency on the darling sins which he cherishes, and may then be allowed to condemn with the utmost sternness all evil passions to which he is not addicted." "That sounds _very_ shocking, holy Mother!" said Lady Sybil. "We are all liable to the temptation," replied Lady Judith, "and are apt to slide into it ere we know it." We all wrought for a little time in silence, when Lady Sybil said, "What do you call that heresy, holy Mother, into which you say that Sister Eudoxia has fallen?" "If thou wilt look into the vision of the Apostle, blessed John, called the Apocalypse," answered Lady Judith, "thou wilt see what Christ our Lord calls it. ’This thou hast, that thou rejectest the teaching of the Nicolaitanes, which I hate."’ "But I thought," said Lady Sybil, looking rather surprised, "that those Nicolaitanes, who were heretics in the early Church, held some very horrible doctrines, and led extremely wicked lives? The holy Patriarch was speaking of them, not long ago."