"
"Think you, father, it is along of the reliques? for Peter a Floris, a
learned leech and no pagan, denies it stoutly."
"What knows Peter a Floris? And what know I? I take not on me to say
we can command the saints, and will they nill they, can draw corporal
virtue from their blest remains. But I see that the patient drinking
thus in faith is often bettered as by a charm. Doubtless faith in the
recipient is for much in all these cures. But so 'twas ever. A sick
woman, that all the Jewish leeches failed to cure, did but touch
Christ's garment and was healed in a moment. Had she not touched that
sacred piece of cloth she had never been healed. Had she without faith
not touched it only, but worn it to her grave, I trow she had been none
the better for't. But we do ill to search these things too curiously.
All we see around us calls for faith. Have then a little patience.
We shall soon know all. Meantime, I, thy confessor for the nonce, do
strictly forbid thee, on thy soul's health, to hearken learned lay folk
on things religious. Arrogance is their bane; with it they shut heaven's
open door in their own faces. Mind, I say, learned laics. Unlearned ones
have often been my masters in humility, and may be thine. Thy wound is
cared for; in three days 'twill be but a scar. And now God speed thee,
and the saints make thee as good and as happy as thou art thoughtful
and gracious.
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