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Hardly had the rector announced, "Here beginneth the forty-fourth verse of the sixteenth chapter of the book of the prophet Ezekiel," than a sort of relaxation took place in the mind I was attacking.

Through carelessness, in not adverting at first to the beginnings and first degrees of this deadness and upsitting, when the heart beginneth to grow formal and superficial in duties, and to be satisfied with a perfunctorious performance, without life and sense.

Here the two riuers ioyned together begin to be eight or nine miles broad: here also it beginneth to ebbe and flow, and the water ouerflowing maketh the countrey all about very fertile of corne, rice, pulse, and dates. The towne of Balsara is a mile and an halfe in circuit: all the buildings, castle and wals, are made of bricke, dried in the Sun.

The Widow Lady and her daughter commend him to God, and the castle remaineth in better keeping than he had found it. Here beginneth another branch of the Graal in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

But if we now consider of the actions both of Charles the Fifth, who had the maidenhead of Peru and the abundant treasures of Atabalipa, together with the affairs of the Spanish king now living, what territories he hath purchased, what he hath added to the acts of his predecessors, how many kingdoms he hath endangered, how many armies, garrisons, and navies he hath, and doth maintain, the great losses which he hath repaired, as in Eighty-eight above an hundred sail of great ships with their artillery, and that no year is less infortunate, but that many vessels, treasures, and people are devoured, and yet notwithstanding he beginneth again like a storm to threaten shipwrack to us all; we shall find that these abilities rise not from the trades of sacks and Seville oranges, nor from aught else that either Spain, Portugal, or any of his other provinces produce; it is his Indian gold that endangereth and disturbeth all the nations of Europe; it purchaseth intelligence, creepeth into counsels, and setteth bound loyalty at liberty in the greatest monarchies of Europe.

As by the outside of an house the passers-by are oftentimes deceived, till they see the conveniency of the rooms within; so, by the very name of discipline and reformation, men were drawn at first to cast a fancy towards it, but now they have not contented themselves only to pass by and behold afar off the fore-front of this reformed house; they have entered it, even at the special request of the master-workmen and chief-builders thereof: they have perused the rooms, the lights, the conveniences, and they find them not answerable to that report which was made of them, nor to that opinion which upon report they had conceived: so as now the discipline, which at first triumphed over all, being unmasked, beginneth to droop, and hang down her head.

Presently they went on, and the feet of Face-of-god led him unwitting toward the chestnut grove by the old dyke where he had met the Bride such a little while ago, till he bethought whither he was going and stopped short and reddened; and the Sun-beam noted it, but spake not; but he said: 'Hereby is a fair place for us to sit and talk till the day's work beginneth.

"How is this?" she exclaimed in haste; "hath the stout Dudley lost any of his craft? I have never counted with greater certainty on the riches of the table, than when he hath been sent among the hills for the fat deer, or the tender turkey. It would much grieve me to learn that he beginneth to lack the hunter's skill."

Nor is it a great while after ere, as God's justice and puissance will it, she riseth up again, as she had not been dead, and beginneth anew her woeful flight, whilst the dogs and I again pursue her.

Then the clerk giveth unto every of them a small wax candle burning; then cometh the priest, and beginneth to say certain words which the godfathers and godmothers must answer word for word, among which one is, that the child shall forsake the Devil, and as that name is pronounced, they must all spit at the word, as often as it is repeated.