There would be men who would vow that whatever the Church said and did must be right because the Church was the body of Christ, not knowing that even that body can become corrupt (though never the Head) if the will of man be put in the stead of the will of God; and these would cling to the corruptions as closely as to the ordinances of God, and become bitter persecutors of those who would arise and seek to cleanse and renew the body by God-given remedies.

But again there would be men who would arise and deny that there was a body, would condemn the very name of the Church, and avow that what the Lord wanted was not a body, but a number of individuals each seeking light and salvation in his own fashion.

That would be a fearful evil--an evil which would rend the body into a thousand schisms, and bring down at last the heavy wrath of God, who has from the beginning taught men that the body must be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing before it can be fit to be the bride of the Lamb.
The young monk earnestly strove to show the perils of both these ways to the boys who rode beside him, and his words were earnestly listened to, and, by one at least, laid seriously to heart, to be remembered in after days almost as the words of prophecy, and destined to have a lasting effect upon his own future career.
From that day Edred renounced all thought of the monastic life, feeling that such a life would but trammel his conscience and stultify his judgment.

He resolved to live his life in the world, whilst seeking to be not of the world.

How that resolve was kept there is no space in these pages to tell.
Slowly and quietly the three friends jogged down into the little fishing and trading hamlet that lay at the base of the cliffs.