Now if it were so, cousin, that you should be brought through the broad high-street of a great long city; and if, all along the way that you were going, there were on one side of the way a rabble of ragged beggars and madmen, who would despise and dispraise you with all the shameful names that they could call you and all the villainous words that they could say to you; and if there were then, all along the other side of the same street where you should come by, a goodly company standing in a fair range, a row of wise and worshipful folk, lauding and commending you, more than fifteen times as many as that rabble of ragged beggars and railing madmen—­would you willingly turn back, thinking that you went unto your shame, for the shameful jesting and railing of those mad foolish wretches?  Or would you hold on your way with a good cheer and a glad heart, thinking yourself much honoured by the laud and approbation of that other honourable company?

VINCENT:  Nay, by my troth, uncle, there is no doubt but that I would much regard the commendation of those commendable folk, and regard not a rush the railing of all those ribalds.

ANTHONY:  Then, cousin, no man who hath faith can account himself shamed here, by any manner of death that he suffereth for the faith of Christ.  For however vile and shameful it seem in the sight here of a few worldly wretches, it is lauded and approved for very precious and honourable in the sight of God and all the glorious company of heaven, who as perfectly stand and behold it as those foolish people do.  And they are in number more than a hundred to one; and of that hundred, every one a hundred times more to be regarded and esteemed than a hundred such whole rabbles of the other.

And now, if a man would be so mad as to be ashamed, for fear of the rebuke that he should have of such rebukeful beasts, to confess the faith of Christ, then, with fleeing from a shadow of shame, he would fall into a true shame—­and a deadly painful shame indeed!  For then hath our Saviour made a sure promise that he will show himself ashamed of that man before the Father of heaven and all his holy angels, saying in the ninth chapter of Luke, “He who is ashamed of me and my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he shall come in the majesty of himself and of his Father and of his holy angels.”  And what manner of shameful shame shall that be, then?  If a man’s cheeks glow sometimes for shame in this world, they will fall on fire for shame when Christ shall show himself ashamed of them there!

The blessed apostles reckoned it for great glory to suffer for Christ’s faith the thing that we worldly wretched fools think to be villainy and shame.  For they, when they were scourged, with despite and shame, and thereupon commanded to speak no more of the name of Christ, “went their way from the council joyful and glad that God had vouchsafed to do them the worship to suffer shameful despite for the name of Jesus.”  And so proud were they of the shame and villainous pain put unto them, that for all the forbidding of that great council assembled, they ceased not every day to preach out the name of Jesus still—­not only in the temple, out of which they were set and whipped for the same before, but also, to double it with, they went preaching the name about from house to house, too.