Edred had, by some instinct for which he could not account, addressed his prayers of late less to the blessed Virgin and more to the Son of God Himself--struck, perhaps, by the words he had heard from the lips of the heretic peddler about the "one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus." He now turned in his saddle and waited till Brother Emmanuel came up.

It was too solitary a place for them to care to keep up the appearance of master and servant.
Riding thus side by side, Brother Emmanuel talked with the boys out of the fulness of his heart.

His week of captivity had been spent in deep and earnest thought, and some of these thoughts were imparted to the boys in that last serious talk.

He bid them hold in all reverence and godly fear that Church which was the body of Christ, and those ordinances which had been given at the beginning for the perfecting of the saints, and which were God's ways of dealing with man.

But he warned them in solemn tones of the fearful disease which had attacked the body, and which threatened a fearful remedy before that body could be cleansed; he warned them also of the perils which beset the path of those who should live to see the coming struggle.