But such folk have need to lift up their hearts and call upon God, and by the counsel of other good spiritual folk to cast away the cowardice of their own conceiving which the night’s fear by the devil hath framed in their fancy.  And they have need to look in the gospel upon him who laid up his talent and left it unoccupied and therefore utterly lost it, with a great reproach of his pusillanimity, but which he had thought to have excused himself, in that he was afraid to put it forth into use and occupy it.

And all this fear cometh by the devil’s drift, wherein he taketh occasion of the faintness of our good and sure trust in God.  And therefore let us faithfully dwell in the good hope of his help, and then shall the shield of his truth so compass us about that of this night’s fear we shall have no fear at all.

XIV

This pusillanimity bringeth forth, by the night’s fear, a very timorous daughter, a silly wretched girl and ever whining, who is called Scrupulosity, or a scrupulous conscience.

This girl is a good enough maidservant in a house, never idle but ever occupied and busy.  But albeit she hath a very gentle mistress who loveth her well and is well content with what she doth—­or, if all be not well (as all cannot always be well), is content to pardon her as she doth others of her fellows, and letteth her know that she will do so—­yet can this peevish girl never cease whining and puling for fear lest her mistress be always angry with her and she shall severely be chidden.  Would her mistress, think you, be likely to be content with this condition?  Nay, surely not.

I knew such a one myself, whose mistress was a very wise woman and (a thing which is in women very rare) very mild also and meek, and liked very well such service as she did her in the house.  But she so much misliked this continual discomfortable fashion of hers that she would sometimes say, “Eh, what aileth this girl?  The elvish urchin thinketh I were a devil, I do believe.  Surely if she did me ten times better service than she doth, yet with this fantastical fear of hers I would be loth to have her in mine house.”

Thus fareth, lo, the scrupulous person, who frameth himself many times double the fear that he hath cause, and many times a great fear where there is no cause at all.  And of that which is indeed no sin, he maketh a venial one.  And that which is venial, he imagineth to be deadly—­and yet, for all that, he falleth into them, since they are of their nature such as no man long liveth without.  And then he feareth that he is never fully confessed nor fully contrite, and then that his sins be never fully forgiven him.  And then he confesseth and confesseth again, and cumbereth himself and his confessor both.  And then every prayer that he saith, though he say it as well as the frail infirmity of the man will suffer, yet he is not satisfied unless he say it again, and yet after that again.  And when he hath said the same thing thrice, as little is he satisfied with the last time as the first.  And then is his heart evermore in heaviness, unquiet, and fear, full of doubt and dullness, without comfort or spiritual consolation.