ANTHONY:  In good faith, cousin, methinketh you say very true.  But then one thing must I yet desire you, cousin, to tell me a little further.  If there were another laid in prison for a brawl, and through the jailors’ displeasure were bolted and fettered and laid in a low dungeon in the stocks, where he might lie peradventure for a while and abide in the meantime some pain but no danger of death at all, but that out again he should come well enough—­which of these two prisoners would stand in the worse case?  He that hath all this favour, or he that is thus hardly handled?

VINCENT:  By our Lady, uncle, I believe that most men, if they should needs choose, had liefer be such prisoners in every point as he who so sorely lieth in the stocks, than in every point such as he who walketh at such liberty about the park.

ANTHONY:  Consider, then, cousin, whether this thing seem any sophistry to you that I shall show you now.  For it shall be such as seemeth in good faith substantially true to me.  And if it so happen that you think otherwise, I will be very glad to perceive which of us both is beguiled.

For it seemeth to me, cousin, first, that every man coming into this world here upon earth as he is created by God, so cometh he hither by the providence of God.  Is this any sophistry first, or not?

VINCENT:  Nay, verily, this is very substantial truth.

ANTHONY:  Now take I this, also, for very truth in my mind:  that there cometh no man nor woman hither into the earth but what, ere ever they come alive into the world out of the mother’s womb, God condemneth them unto death by his own sentence and judgment, for the original sin that they bring with them, contracted in the corrupted stock of our forefather Adam.  Is this, think you, cousin, verily thus or not?

VINCENT:  This is, uncle, very true indeed.

ANTHONY:  Then seemeth this true further unto me:  that God hath put every man here upon the earth under so sure and so safe keeping that of all the whole people living in this wide world, there is neither man, woman, nor child—­would they never so far wander about and seek it—­who can possibly find any way by which they can escape from death.  Is this, cousin, a fond imagined fancy, or is it very truth indeed?

VINCENT:  Nay, this is no imagination, uncle, but a thing so clearly proved true that no man is so mad as to deny it.

ANTHONY:  Then need I say no more, cousin.  For then is all the matter plain and open evident truth, which I said I took for truth.  And it is yet a little more now than I told you before, when you took my proof yet but for a sophistical fancy, and said that, for all my reasoning that every man is a prisoner, yet you thought that, except those whom the common people call prisoners, there is else no man a very prisoner indeed.  And now you grant yourself again for very substantial truth, that every man, though he be the greatest king upon earth, is