"How do you mean? Never forbidden it! Why, then, is all this coil
which has set London aflame and lighted the fires of Paul's Yard
for the destruction of those very books?"

"I did not say that men had never forbidden the reading of the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue by the unlettered. I said that Holy
Church herself had never issued such a mandate."

"Not by her Popes?" questioned the younger man hastily.

"A papal bull is not the voice of the Holy Catholic Church," spoke
Clarke, slowly and earnestly. "A Pope is not an apostle; though, as
a bishop, and a Bishop of Rome, he must be listened to with all
reverence. Apostles are not of man or by man, but sent direct by
God. Popes elected by cardinals (and too often amid flagrant
abuses) cannot truly be said to hold apostolic office direct from
the Lord. No, I cannot see that point as others do. But let that
pass. What I do maintain, and will hold to with certainty, is that
in this land the Catholic Church has never forbidden men to read
the Scriptures for themselves in any tongue that pleases them. I
have searched statutes and records without end, and held
disputations with many learned men, and never have I been proven to
be in the wrong."

"I trow you are right there, John Clarke," spoke a deep voice from
out the shadows of the room at the far end, away from the long,
mullioned window. "I have ever maintained that our Mother the Holy
Church is a far more merciful and gentle and tolerant mother than
those who seek to uphold her authority, and who use her name as a
cloak for much maliciousness and much ignorance."