Bible Stories and Religious Classics eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 580 pages of information about Bible Stories and Religious Classics.

Bible Stories and Religious Classics eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 580 pages of information about Bible Stories and Religious Classics.

Also as St. Austin came into Oxfordshire to a town that is called Compton to preach the word of God, to whom the curate said:  Holy father, the lord of this lordship hath been ofttimes warned of me to pay his tithes to God, and yet he withholdeth them, and therefore I have cursed him, and I find him the more obstinate.  To whom St. Austin said:  Son, why payest thou not thy tithes to God and to the church?  Knowest thou not that the tithes be not thine but belong to God?  And then the knight said to him:  I know well that I till the ground, wherefore I ought as well to have the tenth sheaf as the ninth, and when St. Austin could not turn the knight’s entent, then he departed from him and went to mass.  And ere he began he charged that all they that were accursed should go out of the church, and then rose a dead body and went out in to the churchyard with a white cloth on his head, and stood still there till the mass was done.  And then St. Austin went to him and demanded him what he was, and he answered and said:  I was sometime lord of this town, and because I would not pay my tithes to my curate he accursed me, and so I died and went to hell.  And then St. Austin bade bring him to the place where his curate was buried, and then the carrion brought him thither to the grave, and because that all men should know that life and death be in the power of God, St. Austin said:  I command thee in the name of God to arise, for we have need of thee, and then he arose anon, and stood before all the people.  To whom St. Austin said:  Thou knowest well that our Lord is merciful, and I demand thee, brother, if thou knowest this man? and he said:  Yea, would God that I had never known him, for he was a withholder of his tithes, and in all his life an, evil doer, thou knowest that our Lord is merciful, and as long as the pains of hell endure let us also be merciful to all Christians.  And then St. Austin delivered to the curate a rod, and there the knight kneeling on his knees was assoiled, and then he commanded him to go again to his grave, and there to abide till the day of doom; and he entered anon into his grave and forthwith fell to ashes and powder.  And then St. Austin said to the priest:  How long hast thou lain here? and he said a hundred and fifty years; and then he asked how it stood with him, and he said:  Well, holy father, for I am in everlasting bliss; and then said St. Austin:  Wilt thou that I pray to Almighty God that thou abide here with us to confirm the hearts of men in very belief?  And then he said:  Nay, holy father, for I am in a place of rest; and then said St. Austin:  Go in peace, and pray for me and for all holy church, and he then entered again into his grave, and anon the body was turned to earth.  Of this sight the lord was sore afeard, and came all quaking to St. Austin and to his curate, and demanded forgiveness of his trespass, and promised to make amends and ever after to pay his tithes and to follow the doctrine of St. Austin.

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Bible Stories and Religious Classics from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.