father,” said the good wife, “I have a burthen too heavy to bear unless I obtain your mercy to lighten it:  I married a member of the Church of England!” “What!” cried the shorn-pate, “married a heretic! wedded to an enemy? forgiveness can never be obtained!” At these words she fainted, while he kept calling down imprecations upon her head.  “Woe’s me, and what is worse,” cried she when come to herself, “I killed him!” “Oh ho! thou hast killed him?  Well, that’s something towards gaining the reconciliation of the Church; I tell thee now, hadst thou not slain him, thou wouldst never have obtained absolution nor purgatory, but a straight gate and a leaden weight to the devil.  But where’s your offering, you jade?” he demanded with a snarl.  “Here,” said she, handing him a considerable bag of money.  “Well,” said he, “now I’ll make your reconciliation:  your penance is to remain always a widow lest you should make another bad bargain.”  When she was gone, the maiden also came forward to make her confession.  “Your pardon, father confessor,” cried she, “I conceived a child and slew it.”  “A fair deed, i’faith,” said the confessor, “and who might the father be?” “Indeed ’twas one of your monks.”  “Hush, hush,” he cried, “speak no ill of churchmen. {25a} What satisfaction have you for the Church?” “Here it is,” said she and handed him a gold trinket.  “You must repent, and your penance will be to watch at my bedside to-night,” he said with a leer.  Hereupon four other shavelings entered, dragging before the confessor a poor wretch, who came about as willingly as he would to the gallows.  “Here’s for you a rogue,” cried one of the four, “who must do penance for disclosing the secrets of the Catholic Church.”  “What!” exclaimed the confessor, looking towards a dark cell near at hand:  “but come, villain, confess what thou hast said?” “Indeed,” began the poor fellow, “a neighbour asked me whether I had seen the souls that were groaning underneath the altar on All-souls’ day; and I said I had heard the voice, but had seen nothing.”  “So, sirrah, come now, tell everything.”  “I said moreover,” he continued, “that I had heard that you were playing tricks on us unlettered hinds, that, instead of souls, there was nothing but crabs making a row under the carpet.”  “Oh, thou hell-hound! cursed knave!” cried the confessor, “but, proceed, mastiff.”  “And that it was a wire that turned the image of St. Peter, and that it was along a wire the Holy Ghost descended from the roodloft upon the priest.”  “Thou heir of hell!” cried the shriver, “Ho there, torturers, take him and cast him into that smoky chimney for tale-bearing.”  “Well, this is the church Hypocrisy insists upon calling the Catholic Church, and she avers that these only are saved,” said the Angel; “they once had the proper spectacles, but they cut the glass into a thousand forms; they once had true faith, but they mixed that salve with substances of their own, so that they see no better than the unbelieving.”