Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/249

 are neither pure nor virgin ones. Og. As soon as the officer sees us, he runs presently and puts on a surplice and a stole about his neck, and falls down very devoutly and worships, and by and by gives us the holy milk to kiss. Then we prostrated ourselves at the lowest step of the altar, and having first paid our adoration to Christ, we applied ourselves to the Virgin in the following prayer, which we had framed beforehand for this very purpose:

“Virgin Mother, who hast merited to give suck to the Lord of heaven and earth, thy Son Jesus, from thy virgin breasts, we desire that, being purified by His blood, we may arrive at that happy infant state of dove-like innocence which, being void of malice, fraud, and deceit, we may continually desire the milk of the evangelical doctrine, until it grows up to a perfect man, and to the measure of the fulness of Christ, whose blessed society thou wilt enjoy for evermore, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Me. Truly, a devout prayer. But what answer did she make? Og. If my eyes did not deceive me, they were both pleased, for the holy milk seemed to give a leap, and the eucharist seemed to look somewhat bigger than usual. In the meantime the shower of the relics came to us, without speaking a word, holding out such a kind of table as they in Germany that take toll on the bridges hold out to you. Me. In truth, I have oftentimes cursed those craving tables when I travelled in Germany. Og. We laid down some pieces of money, which he presented to the Virgin.

After this, by our interpreter (if I remember right), one Robert Aldridge, a well-spoken young man, and a great master of the English tongue, I inquired as civilly as I could, what assurance he had that this was really the Virgin’s milk. And truly I desired to be satisfied of this with a pious intention, that I might stop the mouths of some impious persons who are used to scoff at all these things. The officer first contracted his brow without speaking a word; thereupon I pressed the interpreter to put the same question to him again, but in the fairest manner that could be, and he did it in so obliging a manner that if he had addressed himself to the mother herself in these terms, when she had but newly lain in, she would not have taken it amiss. But the officer, as if he had been inspired with some enthusiasm, look- ing upon us with astonished eyes, and with a sort of horror, cursing our blasphemous expression, said, What need is there for your putting this question, when you have an authentic record? and had turned us out of doors for heretics, had not a few pence pacified his rage.

Me. But how did you behave yourselves in the interim? Og. Just as if we had been stunned with a cudgel, or struck with thunder; we sneaked away, humbly begging his pardon for our boldness; for so a man ought to do in holy matters. Thence we went to the little chapel, the dwelling of the Virgin Saint. In our way thither an expounder of sacred things, one of the minors, offers himself; he stares upon us as if he had a mind to draw our pictures; and having gone a little farther, another meets iis, staring upon us after the same manner; and after him a third. Me. It may be they had a mind to have drawn your picture. Og. But I suspected far otherwise. Me. What did you imagine then? Og. That some sacrilegious person had stolen some of the Virgin’s vestments, and that I was suspected as the thief,