Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/203

188 the children of the Devil, and refuse to consider the Church or the churchyard a holier place than other ground, for they say the whole earth is equally blessed of God. They mock the singing of hymns and the tapers burning before the holy images; and the days when churches and altars are consecrated they call, in derision, 'the Holy Days of Stones.'

"Every good and holy man, they say, is the son of God, even as Christ Himself. They acknowledge the Incarnation, Nativity, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ; but by this they understand the conception, birth, and spiritual resurrection of the man made perfect through penitence. For them the true Passion of Jesus is the martyrdom of the just, and the veritable Sacrament is the conversion of man, for in that manner is made the Body of Christ.

"Nevertheless, they differ much among themselves, according as they be more or less attainted by these errors. Nearly all agree that the soul of every good man is the Holy Spirit, that is to say, God. But there are some among them of less evil sentiments, whose error is that every worthy man can make the Body of Christ in the Eucharist in pronouncing the words prescribed. I have seen one such heretic in the flames, who, placed before the altar, believed herself able to consecrate the bread and wine, and she a woman. I have heard a mother and daughter, attainted with these same errors, although not of one mind on certain points, make proof of a profound knowledge of the propositions they defended. Both of them were burned."

It will be seen that these persecuted Vaudois had much in common with the modern sect of Quakers. Like their younger and more fortunate brethren, they