Priscillianism

“ Opening it at random, Priscilla read a few words only, but those so strange that, instead of at once restoring the book, she laid it aside until she should have time to consider her duty in the matter. On one side lay hospitality and honor, but on the other was the obligation to justice and to the common weal, which to those early settlers was a matter far more vital than to us, for it included not only their own interests, but perhaps the very lives of all belonging to them. ”

“ Let us examine the doctrine of the Christian sects, which sprung up in the fourth century, in regard to endless hell. We continue to take our extracts from Roman Catholic authors.
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Priscillian, a Spaniard, was the founder of the Christian sect of Priscillianists, in the year 380. This denomination of Christians believed in the doctrine of Metempsychosis. They held that the souls passed into the bodies of other men, until they were purified, by their transmigrations, of the sins they had committed in an anterior life. They denied the resurrection of human bodies. ”

“ For myself I know that the larger lines of my life were laid down once for all by—but what has this to do with Priscilla? Thus, I say, are all our doings ruled by Chance, who loves to use small means for the working of great wonders. ”

“ Who knows," said Fritzing with a great show of bright belief in his own prophecy, the while his heart was a stone, "who knows but what you are now on the very threshold of it?"
"Oh," murmured Priscilla, too beaten to do anything but droop her head.
"It is insisting on the commonplace to remind you, ma'am, that the darkest hour comes before dawn. Yet it is a well-known natural phenomenon." ”

“ We who are nestling for the moment like Priscilla beneath the warm wing of Good Fortune can dare to make what the children call a face at her grey sister as she limps scowling past. Shall we not too one day in our turn feel her claws? ”

“ She it was who had sent the Morrisons, father and son, to drive Priscilla from the churchyard before Fritzing had joined her, without which driving she would never have met Augustus. She it was who had used the trifling circumstance of a mislaid sermon-book to take the vicar and Robin into the church at an unaccustomed time, without which sermon-book they would never have met Priscilla in the churchyard and driven her out of it. Thus are all our doings ruled by Chance; and it is a pleasant pastime for an idle hour to trace back big events to their original and sometimes absurd beginnings. ”

“ Presgrave. "There are many who act upon prompt and noble impulse, who trample, as it were, on the sin that besets them, but fail when their trial is lengthened and tedious, when their courage has time to cool and their hope to flag. And we all need the apostle's exhortation—'Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.'"
"Ours must be a lifelong keeping down of the serpent," said Percy, rather as if thinking aloud than as if addressing himself to his companions. ”

“ You see I have never had real children in my life. The kinds passed out to nice girls like me were sad travesties. Since I saw the darling of to-day I've been wondering—do not laugh, Priscilla—but I've been wondering what poor, cheated little morsel of humanity, in the unreal world, would find herself in that eleventh miracle of the wretched hovel? And what an art yours is, dear Priscilla! How you soothed away the suffering by your touch. ”

“ Priscilla's talents are by no means hidden in a napkin, and more than one young man of limited means has reason to bless the doctor's kind wife, who willingly devotes a spare hour to helping them in their mathematical studies, and by her thoughtful actions and loving words seeks to turn them from darkness and lead them into the kingdom of God.
There is no fear, her brother Lewis says, that her boys will ever have to complain of the dulness of the evenings in their home, for father and mother alike do all they can to brighten the after-dinner hours for the young ones. ”

“ Priscilla, meanwhile, was wandering up the bridle-track with Reuben Gaunt, and the little, plain-featured man with the wild eyes was talking to her—talk being his prime work in life—and telling her of the countries he had seen, the busy streets, the things remote from Garth’s quiet highroad, and Garth’s quiet hill-slopes where the work of farming life was done.
Like cloud-land drifting before a merry wind, the old life went receding from Priscilla of the Good Intent. ”

“ Sir, said Sir Percivale, what signifieth my dream that I dreamed this night? And there he told him altogether: She which rode upon the lion betokeneth the new law of holy church, that is to understand, faith, good hope, belief, and baptism. For she seemed younger than the other it is great reason, for she was born in the resurrection and the passion of our Lord Jesu Christ. And for great love she came to thee to warn thee of thy great battle that shall befall thee. With whom, said Sir Percivale, shall I fight? With the most champion of the world, said the old man ”

“ The accused were preachers, or had aided and comforted the preachers, or had attended their services, or joined the consistories, or afforded evidence, in some form, that they had espoused the damnable doctrines of heresy. It is precisely in such a case, where men are called to suffer for conscience' sake, that they are prepared to endure all,—to die in defence of their opinions. The storm of persecution fell on persons of every condition; men and women, the young, the old, the infirm and helpless. ”

“ Prissy always say, 'Go 'way, I'se busy.'"
Poor Priscilla! For one moment she caught her father's eye fixed on her, now not so much in anger as in disappointment and grief. And without saying a word, she went to her own room and threw herself on her bed in an agony of tears. But they were more tears of shame than of anything else; and her cry was:
"Mother! mother! I've gone all wrong since you left me, and poor Claude's accident is my fault—mine only."
I think when the angels heard that cry they were glad. The first step to betterness is, they know, when a soul acknowledges it has sinned. ”

“ Very pretty the young girl looked as she walked on that April day, bent on an errand of kindness to a neighbouring cottage. For, despite the sad memories that filled her heart, Priscilla's face wore a look of peace that had never been there even in her childhood's days. Ever since the October day when, through little Claude's accident, Prissy's eyes had been opened to see her own selfishness and sin, she had been a changed girl.
Not all at once had the victory been gained; again and again self rose up and became conqueror. ”

“ Maidens of rounded nature, like Priscilla, pay less attention to what a man says than to the tones of his voice, the look in his eyes, and his unconscious movements. As Alden warmed to his work, she glanced at him occasionally, and not only wished that Heaven had made her such a man, but decided that it had. ”

“ Priscilla showed less vexation at losing her excursion, though she took the shilling with a discontented air; and her first words, as she turned to walk back with her sister, were as unjust as they were ungrateful to that good Providence that gives us so much even upon earth to enjoy.
“I knew that it would be so! it always happens thus! If one expects a little pleasure, disappointment is sure to come!”
“How strange and unkind in my uncle!” said Lucy, still half crying; “and to think that these stupid shillings could make up for the loss of such a delightful treat!” ”

“ The soul he had so carefully tended and helped to grow was now grown stronger than his own; for there was added to its natural strength the tremendous daring of absolute inexperience. What can be more inexperienced than a carefully guarded young princess? Priscilla's ignorance of the outside world was pathetic. ”

“ Priscilla shut her eyes. She was listening for the first sound of Tussie's or Fritzing's footfall, the glad sound heralding the approach of something to eat, and wishing Robin would go away. He was kind at times and obliging, but on the whole a nuisance. It was a great pity there were so many people in the world who were nuisances and did not know it. Somebody ought to tell them,—their mothers, or other useful persons of that sort. ”

“ Morrison's and her own conscience's accusations, her soul much beaten and bent by winds of misgiving but still on its feet, still defiant, still sheltering itself when it could behind plain common sense which whispered at intervals that all that had happened was only bad luck. They walked miles that day; often in silence, sometimes in gusty talk—talk gusty with the swift changes of Priscilla's mood scudding across the leaden background of Fritzing's steadier despair—and they got back tired, hungry, their clothes splashed with mud, their minds no nearer light than when they started. ”

“ Does one let one's life go? One's hope of salvation go? One's little precious minute of perfect happiness go? When I'm well again I shall be just as dull and stupid as ever, just such a shy fool, not able to speak—"
"But it's a gracious state"—stammered poor Priscilla.
"Loving you? Loving you?"
"No, no—not being able to speak. It's always best—"
"It isn't. It's best to be true to one's self, to show honestly what one feels, as I am now—as I am now—" And he fell to kissing her hands again.
"Tussie, this isn't being honest," said Lady Shuttleworth sternly, "it's being feverish." ”

“ Priscilla knew. Did Priscilla know? Why should not Psyche know?
Poor little Psyche! It was very still, and Edward was dead asleep. And one word from him would make her perfectly happy. And yet she did not dare ask him to speak that one word.
Why should she not be perfectly happy? Why should she disturb him at all? Why should she not keep her promise, and be perfectly happy too?
Dear little Psyche! Poor little Psyche! She got out of bed, and she stepped gently across the room to Edward's dressing-room, and she pushed the door to. ”

“ Conceive the deadly patience needed to stand passive and be talked to, amused, taken care of, all day long for years. Conceive the intolerableness, if you are at all sensitive, of being watched by eyes so sharp and prying, so eager to note the least change of expression and to use the conclusions drawn for personal ends that nothing, absolutely nothing, escapes them. Priscilla's sisters took all these things as a matter of course, did not care in the least how keenly they were watched and talked over, never wanted to be alone, liked being fussed over by their ladies-in-waiting. ”

“ Which of us dares to try a fall with a pure-minded person, in defence of his sex, or anyone else's? Miss Priscilla, having a pure mind and getting the bit in her teeth in connexion with her nephew-in-law's shortcomings, bolted, and dragged her niece after her through an imaginary Society compounded of London in the days of the Regency and Rome in the days of Tiberius, with a touch of impending Divine vengeance in the bush, justifying reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. ”

“ And if it should be asked,—How comes it that we are so liable to be affected by this dulness of spirit and of general habit?—we have to reply that it is because of the sensitiveness of the human soul to surrounding influences.
It is because our souls are so receptive, so imitative, and in consequence so easily perverted, darkened, blinded, or misled. I suppose we are all of us conscious of this sensitiveness of the moral and spiritual nature; we should all say, if questioned, that we are quite aware of it, and that no one would dispute it. ”

“ There is in all respects the same sacrilege, the same obscenity, the same turpitude. These crimes, these infamies, are the same which were formerly discovered among the Priscillianists, and of which the whole world is informed."
The Priscillianists were never guilty of the crimes for which they were put to death. In the works of St. Augustine is contained the instructional remarks which were transmitted to that father by Orosius, and in which this Spanish priest protests that he has plucked out all the plants of perdition which sprang up in the sect of the Priscillianists ”

“ The heresy, notwithstanding the severe measures taken against it, continued to spread in France as well as in Spain; in 412 Lazarus, bishop of Aix in Provence, and Herod, bishop of Arles, were expelled from their sees on a charge of Manichaeism. Proculus, the metropolitan of Marseilles, and the metropolitan of Vienne and Narbonensis Secunda were also followers of the rigorous tradition for which Priscillian had died. Something was done for its repression by a synod held by Turibius of Astorga in 446, and by that of Toledo in 447 ”

“ Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash of the sunshine,
Like the spirit of God, moving visibly over the waters.145
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VI.
PRISCILLA.
HUS for a while he stood, and mused by the shore of the ocean,
Thinking of many things, and most of all of Priscilla;
And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like the loadstone,{96}
Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its nature,
Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him.5
“Are you so much offended, you will not speak to me?” ”

“ Priscilla was a Puritan."
"That was a name given to a class of people in England a long time ago."
"What did it mean?"
"They were a stiff set of people, Daisy; good enough people in their way, no doubt, but very absurd in it also."
"What did they do, papa?"
"Concluded to do without whatever is graceful and beautiful and pleasant, in dress or arts or manners. The more disagreeable they made life, they thought it was the better." ”

“ I am no stickler for commonplace colours or conventional shapes in a work of art, but I do like things to be recognisable; to know, for instance, when a thing is meant to be a man and when it is meant to be a boat, and when it is meant to be a pookin and when it is meant to be a sun. The art of Priscilla seems to me to satisfy this test much better than that of many of our modern maestri. ”