Why
should you trouble yourself with these? What have you to do with the
controversies of the priests? Recant, then, poor enthusiastic child,
recant!"
While Catharine, in a low tone and with fluttering breath, thus
spoke, Anne Askew had slowly arisen from her couch, and now stood,
like a lily, so slender and delicate, confronting the queen.
Her noble countenance expressed deep indignation. Her eyes shot
lightning, and a contemptuous smile was on her lips.
"What! Can you thus advise me?" said she. "Can you wish me to deny
my faith, and abjure my God, only to escape earthly pain? And your
tongue does not refuse to utter this, and your heart does not shrink
with shame while you do it? Look at these arms; what are they worth
that I should not sacrifice them to God? See these feeble limbs! Are
they so precious that I, like a disgusting niggard, should spare
them? No, no, God is my highest good--not this feeble, decaying
body! For God I sacrifice it. I should recant? Never! Faith is not
enveloped in this or that garb; it must be naked and open. So may
mine be. And if I then am chosen to be an example of pure faith,
that denies not, and makes profession--well, then, envy me not this
preeminence. 'Many are called, but few are chosen.' If I am one of
the chosen, I thank God for it, and bless the erring mortals who
wish to make me such by means of the torture of the rack. Ah,
believe me, Catharine, I rejoice to die, for it is such a sad,
desolate, and desperate thing to live.
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